The Evening Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1878.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 731, 13 August 1878, Page 2

The Evening Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1878.

Although protection may not be all that the fancy of its votaries has painted it, there is no reason why a Country should go to the other extreme, and, instead of attempting to protect itself, throw the mantle of protection over other Countries that are in competition with it. We should have gone into ecstasies over the Colonial Treasurer's financial proposals had it not been for the presence amongst them of sucli a thin-? as a suggestion for the removal of the duty on imported flour and grain. Perhaps it is just as well that this and les3 nauseating characteristics are present in the political potion which has taken several weary months to compound, and which Parliament is expected to swallow without making faces, or we i should in our overjoy become politically i careless and our Ministers would be puffed np with overweening conceit. In the interests of this district and the Colony we protest against the perpetration of auch an absurdity as the removal of the duty from grain and flour that finds its way to this Colony from foreign parts. Whether the Colony's revenue will suffer los 3or not is not the question. There are more important objects to serve in the administration of the affairs of a Colony than the filling by direct msans of its coffers, and an administrator that is afflicted with such short-sightedness that ha appreciates the jingle of the gold pieces as they drop into the Treasury beyond everything else is a fraud and unworthy of the confidence of the people. It may be urged that the amount that will be lost to the Colony fhrongh the abrogation of the duties on imported flour 0 would only be LSOBO, and that on grain L3D3O, making a total of LOOK). Bot ttiat would be a miserably poor argument in favor of the Treasurer's proposal. What we have to look at is the effect that the removal o; the duty would have upon our most important industry. Let the tax be removed, and what will be the result > Protected merely by freightage, foreign growers and millers will enter into competition with those of this Colony, and the result will be the importation of not the comparatively small quantity of grain and flour represented by the amount of duty at present derived from the importation of those items, but a quantity so large that our grain-gravers and millers, and, of course, the country, wili suffer severely. Fortunately for the Colony, the duty on flour and grain has assisted its settlement to such an extent that we may now be considered prosperous ; but remove the duties (LI per ton on flour and 15s. per ton on grain) and the effect will be worse than it would have been had those items been admitted free of duty from the first. We can scarcely believe that the people of any portion of the Colony would agree to the proposal of Mr. Ballanxe, and we ure quite sure that grain-growing districts will not quietly submit to the perpetration of such maladministration and injustice. Whatever may be advisable under other circumstances, it is evident that while other colonies tax our produce, we must in self protection tax theirs. Tinproposal seems so absurd that we look around us for the reasons for making them. Are the duties to be removed with the object of evidencing beyond dispute that we disapprove of protection < or, seeing that our flour, grain, timber. flax, gum, &c, aie taxed by those whom we would benefit, is it to show Christian liberality that it is proposed to treat them otherwise l Systematic protection has been adjudged to be a mistake ; but, in self-defence, we must cling to it in a modified form s«> long as it is adopted by other countries. Grain-growers and millers, if you quietly submit to the removal of the duties on grain and flour, you will be untrue to yourselves and the Colony. It behoves every man who has a status in the country to oppose this most suicidal proposal of the Colonial Treasurer.