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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5020, 26 April 1877, Page 2

The question Protection v. Free-trado is not likely to arise in New Zealand, at any rate for some time. A colony which embraces all the temperatures but the torrid, and whose products and resources are as varied as those of any country under the sun, need never have recourse to the bolstering-up policy of protection. But this independent position, it we may so describe it, renders us better able to see plainly the evils that other countries and colonies are falling into by reason of their errors in fiscal and economic legislation. Close to our doors we have a striking contrast between the results of the one system and of the other, and when we look fairly at the prosperity of New South Wales and the decadence of Victoria, little doubt can arise as to which colony is pursuing the more successful course. But America has long been the paradise of the protectionists. The great republic of the world has constantly been pointed to as a standing monument of the value of the principle of assisting local industry. The present condition of affairs, however, is not hopeful. What is the verdict of the thousands who are starving in the large manufacturing districts, or the practical lesson to be learnt from the fact that the emigrants from the United States betake themselves not to protectionist Victoria, but to the colony where the principle of protection is scouted as absurd 1 Or what inference is to be drawn from the fact that the Board of Aldermen of New York have passed a resolution in which it was stated, by way of preamble, that the prostration of business in all commercial and industrial branches, and the consequent idleness and want among the working classes, have been on the increase since 1873; that all new enterprises, owing to the uncertainty of investments of any kind, are totally checked, making it more than probable that the statements in the public Press of 50,000 destitute working men in New York alone is painfully correct; and that the unsettled condition of the political affairs of the nation, and the disquietude and apprehension pervading business circles, hourly add to the gloomy forebodings regarding business prospects for the future, and may induce a total deadlock, entailing untold misery upon thousands of familes heretofore able to support themselves ? Imperceptibly perhaps, but nevertheless very surely, protection has been centralising the population in the towns, and undermining those pursuits which flourish in the interior, and draw from the land the means to support the country at large. A similar result has been observable in Victoria. The gold mining and agricultural interests have declined, and the manufacturing interests for a time improved, but the reaction came. Decrease in production led necessarily to a decrease in the spending powers ef the community, and with the consequent decline of the manufacturing interest came depression in trade and an exodus of population. We believe it is a fact that the colony has barely retained its natural increase of population during the last decade, and that at the present time both Victorian capital and labor is finding more profitable employment in the neighboring colonies of Tasmania and New South Wales. r :