New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4571, 13 November 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13.

Ip there is one subject more than another on -which very loose notions exist, it is in relation to the interchange of commodities, and if there is any one subject on which statesmen, so-called, have meddled and muddled,-to the very serious injury of trade and commerce, this is the one. Trade and commerce should be free and unfettered. Capital should circulate like the tide, which by its regular ebb and flow preserves a healthful and perfect equilibrium. But in almost all ages and in all countries, it has been the prime object of statesmen and legislators to set metes and bounds to commerce, and endeavor to enrich their own State at the expense of neighboring countries. Laws were passed to prevent the exportation of gold and silver. The balance of trade theory was set up as the true standard by which to measure the commercial progress of a country, and even now it finds believers despite its utter fallacy and the demonstration thereof. We should, however, exclude Mohammedan countries, inasmuch as freedom of trade is enjoined in the Koran—a book, by the way, which contains many sound maxims on other subjects than commerce, with the requirements of which Mohammed was personally acquainted. But a new and bastard kind of Protection has been called into being in the Australian colonies and North America. It is named “Intercolonial Free Trade,” —a complete misnomer by the way —or “Intercolonial Reciprocity,” by which is meant, we suppose, what has been styled Irish reciprocity, with which everyone has at some time or other been brought into contact, and in which the reciprocity consists in having all the advantage on the one side, and all the loss on the other. There have been long debates in the Colonial Parliaments on the subject, and laws have been passed, and State papers written upon it; but when the theories come to be applied in practice, the absolute worthlessness of the whole thing is seen. New Zealand and Tasmania reciprocated ; in other words, their respective Governments endeavored to “ best” each other, to get an undue advantage ; or, in other words, to “ encourage their colonial “ industries” at the expense of their neighbor’s Custom-house. But in a game of skill of this kind, to be successful, there should be a flat as well as a sharp. This condition was wanting in the present case, and the reciprocity treaty was off. New Zealand and Tasmania have their reciprocity Acts, and that is all they are likely to have. The conditions and capabilities of production are so alike in the two countries that anything in the shape of special exports need not be expected, and a law passed on any such expectation was undoubtedly conceived in ignorance of the first principles of economic science. South Australia and Queensland have reciprocitied, if wo may coin an ugly word to express an ugly and stupid transaction ; and Victorian politicians are in raptures over a possible future in which the Australasian colonies will close their ports against the outside world, and enrich themselves by interchanging commodities special to particular localities. Of course this is all sheer nonesense. It is the veriest political claptrap; but while it amuses an ignorant crowd, it'does a great deal of harm, by unsettling men’s minds, thus preventing the confident investment of capital which is absolutely essential to mercantile and industrial progress. Now, if there are two countries which possess fewer points of attraction for each other in the way of interchanging commodities, these countries are New Zealand and Queensland. The one is insular, the other forms part of a great continent, in which the natural barriers forming boundaries of districts, or what might be states, are fewer than in any other continent, and _ where the range of climate and fertility of soil admit of the cultivation of every natural

product which is consumed by man. Indeed, if we said this of the vast territory included within the limits of Queensland, we should not be far wrong. New Zealand undoubtedly, might produce every article of food and luxury which civilized men require. So far, therefore, both are alike in this respect. _ They differ, however, as we have said, in this, that Queensland, which is the warmer of the two, is a continental, while New Zealand is an island, country. Both, moreover, are alike in this most materiahpoint : they are sparsely occupied by British people, and the cost of labor is, for the present at all events, an insuperable bar to the production of sugar, grain, or any other speciality, which Ihe one could exchange with the other to the exclusion of outside competition. When, therefore, Lord Nobmanby told the Canterbury Agricultural Society the other day that, according to his interpretation of the will of Providence, Queensland was intended to supply New Zealand with sugar, while New Zealand was intended to supply Queensland with breadstuff's, he spoke simply as a superior being who looked upon the countries he had governed from above. That is, he simply looked upon the surface of things ; and because the practical experience of colonisation in the two countries led the colonists to apply their energies and capital in somewhat different directions, therefore it followed that the one was necessary to the other as a market for its surplus produce. But his Excellency forgot that sugar is produced in other countries besides Queensland, with which Now Zealand has intimate commercial relations, and that the production of wheat, butter, cheese, and bacon is by no means a monopoly of New Zealand’s. To make the Governor’s suggestion of any mercantile value, therefore, one thing is necessary, namely, that Queensland should produce sugar cheaper and better than any other country, or it will not pay New Zealand to go there for its supplies. In like manner, a similar rule must be applied to New Zealand. Manifestly Queensland will not buy breadstuffs, butter, cheese, and bacon from New Zealand, unless at a cheaper rate than it can buy them elsewhere. But, inasmuch as this condition does not exist in either country, the inexorable law of demand and supply has determined the intercolonial trade of New Zealand and Queensland at nil. New Zealand can buy sugar suited to its market, on better terms than by importing it from Queensland under special charter, notwithstanding that “ the distance from the North Cape to “Queensland is shorter than from the “ North Cape to Sydney.” Moreover, the North Cape is not a New Zealand market, and if the mileage argument be relied on, we fear that Queensland would be out of the reckoning. We have looked through the import and export returns in detail for 1873, presented to Parliament, and find that New Zealand imported nothing from Queensland, and that its exports during the year to that colony were as under : Oats, 140 bushels £35 Oatmeal, 280 cwt 210 Potatoes, 3 tons 11 Bacon and hams, 147 cwt 662 Sauces, 30 packages 69 Ale, 1500 gallons 150 Bran and sharps, 15 tons .. .. 65 Cheese, 130 cwt 364 Flour, tons 310 These figures speak for themselves. Not that Queensland did not consume large quantities of these commodities, but that by the gravitation of trade it obtained them on much better terms elsewhere. Now, how about New Zealand and its sugar imports the same year? This is how the matter stands. The declared value of sugar imported during 1873 was £372,882 ; and the supply was obtained from the following countries, viz., the United Kingdom, New South Wales, Victoria, China, Hawaiian Islands, Mauritius, New Caledonia, United States of America, and South Sea Islands. And from the same sources, molasses of the value of £3310 was imported during 1873. Now, it follows that unless Queensland offers great inducements in the way of low freights and price, our merchants will not go there for supplies of sugar. Although New Zealand was a considerable importer of breadstuffs during 1873, it also exported the following quantities, of which, as we have shown above, only a handful or two went to Queensland. Thus :

Exported in 1873. Flour £11,942 Bran and sharps 203 Wheat 128,619 Barley .. 112 Malt 745 Oats 7,347 Oatmeal 2,006 Potatoes 2,351 Butter 2,342 Cheese 6,625 Bacon and hams 10,533 Salt beef and pork 2,405 Preserved meats 154,026 We have gone into this subject at considerable length, because we conceive it important to dispose of plausible trade fallacies. Nothing has done more harm in times past, and nothing is calculated to do greater harm in the future, than the endeavor to force commerce out of its natural groove. Water can be raised above its level, bat it costs money to do so ; trade and commerce may be artificially “ fostered,” but this likewise costs money, and a great deal of it. If there is a likelihood of establishing a profitable intercolonial trade between Queensland and New Zealand, the merchants of this colony and Brisbane will not be slow to begin it ; but if not, no mere geographical or physical [argument will have the slightest weight with them. Will it pay 1 If there is a likelihood of its paying, the work will be done ; if not, direct trade will not be established. And so the matter rests, despite the well-meant remarks of his Excellency the Governor at the agricultural dinner in Canterbury.