A COLONIAL CORN-LAW.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 28, 17 September 1842, Page 111

A COLONIAL CORN-LAW.

[From the Colonial Gazette.'] The mother country is generally the model for her colonies ; but sometimes they teach her in turn, by holding the mirror up to her follies. There is at times a peculiar advantage in these lessons ; for the state of social, political, and commercial relations, is so much simpler in the colonies, that the working of causes is more distinctly seen ; while in the parent country it is disguised, though not changed, by complication. New South Wales has for some time been suffering from a crisis, which consists mainly, it may be considered, in a deficiency and fluctuation of the circulating medium — in fact, a currency question. All classes of capitalists suffer from " distress :" traders wish for more banks, for loans, and the like ; employers cry out for labour, to reduce wages ; and certain agriculturists have discovered that the thing which they want is " protection," and therefore they have petitioned that the duty on the import of " foreign " corn, that is corn produced without the colony, shall be raised from five per cent, to fifteen per cent. Theif arguments are in their kind to be accounted perfectly legitimate. They say that, although undoubtedly corn is sometimes wanted, the dealers import it when it is not really wanted ; that a large amount of capital has been invested in land around ' Sydney, which will be thrown out of cultivation ; that agriculture, the basis, of all wealth, must be preeminently encouraged; and it is bad to export bullion in payment for grain. Society in Sydney may, for our present purpose, be divided into four classes — corngrowers, wool-growers (corn-consumers), merchants (corn-consumers), and labourers (corn-consumers). It is estimated by the Governor that corn to the value of about £200,000 is wanted eveiy year to make up the quantity required to feed the people. Seasons of fierce drought recur with such frequency, that twice in three years even the moderate five per cent, duty had to be suspended, and the Governor positively danced for joy when a cargo of rice arrived from Java. The staple industry of the colony is not agricultural, but pastoral, not corn-growing, but wool-growing. In other words, New South Wales depends, not upon its native corn-trade for prosperity, but upon its export of wool ; it is unable to grow quite enough for the average yearly consumption, and it is liable to seasons of sudden and extreme dearth. For great part of its grain it depends upon Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand offers the probable source of large supplies in future. Under such circumstances is it that the agriculturists ask for the " protection " of the state, while they force from the comparatively unfit soil and climate of New South Wales an inadequate supply of food, so precarious, that it is threatened with utter failure every few years, at a cost so considerably above that of its production in other countries, that 15 per cent., the highest duty which the Council can levy on imports, added to the cost of transshipment, is insufficient to " protect " it from the competitieirwith cheaper corn from abroad. What tpey ask amounts" to this : in order to grow corn, which they confessedly cannot so well do as in any of the countries against which they are to be protected, they would put a higher price upon, bread-stuffs, and thus increase the rate of wages (for the supply of labour already falls short of the demand), and with it the cost of growing that article, wool, upon the cheapness as well as goodness of which depends their existence as a flourishing community. We have said that it is a currency question which presses on the good folks of New South Wales : this supplied Mr. Berry with a very sharp argument; for he asked " where was the money for this corn-trade to come from, if the countries with whom they traded did not buy their goods ?" Sir George Gipps replied, not with new arguments, but with some of the standing ones, put in his most familiar and happy style — " He thought the question might be safely allowed to rest with the countries alluded to, who would take care not to send us any of their commodities unless we had the money to pay for them. He should, however, be enabled to show that the want of money would not follow as a necessary consequence of the parties from whom we purchased our bread-stuffs refusing to take our wool. The principle was as fallacious in its operation as the determination of a private individual would be, who might positively refuse to purchase goods of another who did not return the compliment by buying other articles of him/ The same principle of economy would apply/either to public communities or private individuals; and it behoved both of them to consult their own advantage by purchasing their goods wherever they could procure them cheapest, and selling the articles of their own production wherever they could get the best price for them. The facts of the case would therefore be these : the South Americans

did not want our wool ; and, if they were to take it, it would be at a jprice too low to remunerate us for its growth and, exportation. We, however, could' sell ouf wool in England at a much better price, and therefore did not require their custom ; but as we wanted grain for our own consumption, and the South Americans were enabled to sell that article cheaper than others, we find it to our interest to buy of them. The wool in the mean time passed through the hands of the English manufacturer, and was again exported to America in the shape of clothing, in which state it found a ready market; and thus it was that the commercial relations of various countries were ultimately equalized." Now, anything which at all checks the general prosperity of New South Wales, and especially anything which interferes with the economy of the working-class, must do the greatest possible injury to New South Wales — must check immigration. Let the land taken for sheep-feeding be less in consequence of the increased cost of woolgrowing, the exports of wool decrease, bread be materially and permanently dearer — the consequence of dearth, aggravated by restricting a steady and growing corn- trade — let these things be, and the English emigrant will prefer any of the southern colonies to New South Wales. The crowning argument for the proposal was this one preferred by Mr. Berry ; the great aim and end of colonization, he said, is the appropriation and tillage of waste lands : but an infant community cannot engage in the business without protection at first ; and so all new colonists should work under cover of a corn-law ! It would be impossible to pronounce a grosser libel on New South Wales than to say that its lands can only be cultivated by help of a bonus, called a protective duty. The argument is based on a confusion of ideas : we often talk of the occupation and " tillage" of the wilderness ; but the -word " tillage "is used by synecdoche to mean any sort of agriculture or cultivation of lands. The object of colonization is not the occupation and literally the ploughing of waste lands ; but it is that lands shall be occupied and turned to the best account in what way soever. Man has associated with him many animals necessary to his civilized condition, and one is the sheep. As well as corn for human food, therefore, grass is wanted for ovine food ; and it matters not, or rather it is probably better, that the grass should lie in one block here and the corn in another block there. New South Wales possesses this grass-land, and on her wool rests her vast progress in wealth and importance. Expunge all that her wool-trade has done forlier, and Sydney were still an unimportant convict depot. Let it have been less, and by so much would the colony have been less wealthy and important. Among her wool-lands was some suitable for the growth of corn ; and as much as could profitably be produced was very properly drawn from those lands. It is most likely, indeed, that more was grown than could be profitably produced. Not only the importers, but the native producers would be Stimulated by the dearth-prices to extend their operations over the widest space possible ; and thus they aggravated the reaction of the prices in time of plenty. Finding prices lower, and naturally enough wishing them to be higher, they request the Legislature to pass a law, that in time of plenty corn shall be as dear, or something like as dear, as in time of dearth. A nice way to attract immigration and cheapen •wool ! However, the Legislature consists, as most of the employer class in New South Wales do, ot those who grow more wool than corn, or of others depending directly or indirectly on the wool-trade ; they declined to enhance the price of the raw material of labour and wool. The difference between the Colonial and the Imperial Legislature appears to be, that the ingredients of the colonial trade are so few that their relations and values are at once and distinctly visible : while at home the national staples are more numerous, the trade in them is crossed by many interests, and the dependence of all classes upon their prosperity is not so naked to the sight.