THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, January 6, 1844.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, 6 January 1844, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, January 6, 1844.

Lea jonrnaux deviennent plus ne'cessaires k mesure que les hommes «ont plot egsux, et 1' mdividualisme plus a crmindre. Cc lerait diminuer leer importance que de eroire qu' ila ne fervent qu' it garsntir la liberty ; ill maintiennent fa civilisation. Da Tocquivillb. De la Democratic en Amerique, tome 4, p. 2JO. Journals become more necessary as men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they serve only to secure liberty: they maintain civilisation. Db Tocaocyit.ii. Of Democracy in America, vol . 4, p. SOS.

If a man who had been dumb from his birth were suddenly, by the aid of some skilful disciple of JEsculapius, to acquire the faculty of speech, what a wicked Scaramouclie should we not think him, If the ft* first use he made of bis acquisition were to curse and to swear and abuse the College of SurgeonB P And if a nation which had previously laboured under an absolute Government, on obtaining a representative Legislature were immediately to pass a law the tendency of which was fatal to the interests of the mass of the people and calculated to fetter the progressive power of industry, would not its conduct be equally wicked and absurd ? Yet indications of such a course we lament to observe in the proceedings of the inhabitants of Australia. A very general agitation is there reported, which has for its object the introduction of a Corn Law ! We certainly did hope that, after crossing the sea to a distance of fifteen thousand miles from the land of squirearchy and protective duties, we should have been spared the humiliation of witnessing a people commit* ting suicide by a voluntary limitation of the supply of bread. But no — the malediction of the landlord, which has, in Great Britain, for five-and- twenty years past> been " cursing those whom God had not cursed," which has been cutting off the right hand of the artisan and consigning his pale-faced offspring to untimely graves, is to be adopted in the neighbouring colonies of Australia ; and all the classes of society whom the natural resources of the land .might suffice to maintain, are to be sacrificed for the forced prosperity of that minority which has injudiciously chosen an investment for its capital which the physical character of the country prevents from affording remuneration. On the 14th of October, a public meeting was held at Melbourne, which unanimously declared that such a step (a Corn Law) was necessary to save from ruin the present cultivators. Dr. M'Crae, who filled the chair, stated " that, though a protective duty on colonial grain would be highly injurious to all the colonies, and destroy the reciprocal trade tha£ at present exists, the same could not be said of South America, which took nothing from these colonies but dollars. With these she would improve her breed, of sheep, and shortly rival Australia in the wool market at home. As an instance bow unprofitable agriculture had become, the same speaker showed that while the population of New South Wales had increased since 1840 from 85,268 to 158,889 souls, the wheat crop for 1842 was 2,442 acres less than in the previous named year." Now what does this population and acre fact prove ? Simply this — that the population had discovered that they could purchase the staff of life imported from other places cheaper than that grown at home ; and that, impelled by the natural desire which every rational man entertains and which every free one exercises, the desire to get as much food as possible for as small an outlay as possible, the population has 'seat to a place where corn is very cheap, in

preference to buying it at a place where, comparatively, it is very dear.* But the prominent grievance which affects the mind of Dr. M*Crae and his " unanimous " audience is that America, which furnishes the obnoxious staff of life, takes nothing in return for it except dollars. No doubt, if she was contented to be paid in wool or coal or other commodity except bullion, these gentlemen imagine that the grievance would be less. But how would it be less ? Does New South Wales grow dollars ? Does it rain dollars at Sydney ? Are dollars indigenous at Melbourne, as the love of honey is innate in Cecropian bees ? We suspect not; nor can we understand what worse off New South Wales is if she pay in dollars than she would be if she paid in wool. It is clear that if dollars be neither raised, nor rained, nor indigenous, they must come aliunde, from some other place where they are either raised or rained or indigenous ; and, though it may be by a roundabout course, thence it is they come. And are Dr. M'Crae and his " unanimous" audience so "dark" as not to know that just as much wool or other New South Wales-grown commodity must go where those dollars come from (or at leasft half way to meet them) as would go to South America if the " rival " Chilians happened to want such commodity more than they wanted dollars, and that the trade of Australia derives precisely the same advantage whether she pays America in kind or in cash? By the help of hot-water pipes and a sufficient outlay of capital and windowglass, possibly sugar-canes might be brought to perfection in Caithness. But if any ingenious individual should have gone the length of producing them in Caithness, what should we think of a law which should compel all the people of Scotland to buy Caithness sugar at a guinea an ounce, and forbid them to buy better in Glasgow at sixpence a pound, because it was brought from Jamaica and " paid for in dollars " ? We should probably think that the law had been framed by individuals without brains, for the protection of another individual without conscience ; and in sentencing the one to ignominy and the other to the treadmill, we might possibly offer a hint of recommendation to the effect that if the inhabitants of Caithness could not produce sugar for less than the people of Jamaica could, they had better drop the trade altogether, or at least so long as the sun should shine within the tropics. But the " unanimous " meeting and Dr. M'Crae pass some resolutions, among which they write it down (as a testimony of their wisdom, no doubt, to future generations), " that the best protection for the agriculturists would be afforded by the imposition of a duty upon grain not the produce of British settlements, sufficiently high to render farming profitable, but not too high for the consumer." There is a fable about a dinner and a return dinner," which passed between a fox and a -crane, and which records something about a flat dish and a long-necked bottle. We suspect " the price which should be sufficiently high to render farming profitable, but not too high for the consumer," would something resemble the dish and the bottle ; and that it will be found in New South Wales that the corn grower and corn consumer have snouts of very different dimensions. What price is that which is not too high fox the consumer ? Simply that which is the lowest price at which corn can be bought, whether it be grown in New South Wales or in Chili; and a single fraction above that will always be regarded by the hungry consumer as a price too high for him. If, however, the experience of Great Britain in this very particular — if Buonaparte's beet-root and the Spitalfields silk cannot enlighten the* understanding. of our neighbours — if there is not a " Corn Law Catechism" in all their territory, nor a man that can calculate & sum in Rule of Three—

let them in such case pass their Corn Law with all expedition, that, if the mania for protection should ever extend to us, we maj have the failure of their experiment in advance, to warn us against following their example. Another of the plans which have been suggested in Sydney to relieve the distress, and restore public confidence and private credit, is one for establishing a mortgageoffice, where land proprietors in need of money may, on giving the security of their lands, receive a Government scrip in return. This may be all very well, provided the scrip can be made to maintain its value. But let our neighbours remember that there is such a thing as depreciation, and that even a paper currency may be the subject of it, and at no time more likely than when a sufficient circulating medium exists and credit only is deficient at the time of its issue. We sincerely wish the people of New South Wales " a good deliverance ;" but we fear that neither Dr. M'Crae's resolutions nor Mr. Wyndeyer's bill will be the means to effect it. The fact is that the Australian colonies have got themselves over head and ears in debt by an extremely simple process, namely, by importing goods from Great Britain to about three times the value (we believe that is the estimate) of their exports in- return. In England, when some baron, or 'squire, or knight of the shire has hunted, or raced, or rouletted himself into debt, and his creditors nave become clamorous, the ordinary course is to put his estates into the hands of trustees, who allow him perhaps a tenth of their annual proceeds, and apply the other nine-tenths in satisfaction of his debts. Something of this sort is what ought to be done in New South Wales. Indebted as they are, the colonists have nevertheless a large amount of property, and an actual annual income arising from it. Let them raise a fund by taxation (more or less rapidly) for the purpose of making straight accounts between them and their creditors. Such a course will at"; least have honesty to recommend it, and we believe it would prove much more effectual towards restoring their character in the English market than any attempts to facilitate the extension of their credit by mortgages to the Government of estates in all probability already mortgaged to banks and' private capitalists to their full market value. Possibly our neighbours may reply to this hint, that, if they are already embarrassed, any taxation such as proposed would increase their embarrassment ; which is exactly what the English 'squire tells his creditors when they propose to put him on short commons. " Gentlemen," says he, " if I could not live on ten thousand a year, how, in the name of Fortune, can I live on one ?" However, they find a way of persuading him to do it ; and if our neighbours be really anxious to pay off their British creditors, and not merely to renew those speculations which have brought them to their present status, they will act wisely if they suppose themselves to be under compulsion of a similar nature. Nations are composed of individuals ; and probably few rules of economy which are beneficial for the individual will be found inapplicable to the mass. There is only one way of getting out of such difficulties as those of our neighbours, and that is the straight way. Let their first object be to pay their creditors at home ; and even if, in effecting that object, they pinch and embarrass themselves to the last degree, they will find it more salutary in the long run than any application of whitewash, which shall cover, not eradicate their stains.