FREE TRADE.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 440, 2 July 1879, Page 2

FREE TRADE.

These hard times have re-opened, even in England, the old controversy of Free Tftade versus Protection alias Reciprocity. There is, of course, no sign of wavering on the part of the clear-headed men who guide the affairs of State ; but as drowning men catch at straws, so starving people, misled by the word “ protection,” have fancied themselves suffering because unprotected, and blamably neglected by Government. Here and there men of standing have arisen as advocates of reciprocity. They have been listened to, not because they wore advancing anything new, but because, as the Australasian says of Mr Berry, they are living specimens of a genius supposed to be extinct. The protectionist statesman in England is regarded with the same kind of interest as a living Magatherium would be. The free trader maintains that the interests of the consumer are the only interests to be consulted, inasmuch as the consumers are ten-fold more numerous than the producers. Let ns suppose that some capitalist in England wishes to start a manufactory for beet-root sugar. He finds that he cannot sell his sugar as cheap as the French sell theirs by, say one half-penny per pound. Ho of course would like the Government to tax French sugar one-half-penny per pound so as to raise the price of it by that amount. But the free trade Government say, « No, sir, we will not make thirty-three millions of people pay a half-penny per pound extra for their sngar in order to make your business prosper. Put your capital into something else.” The French Government do not take this view of the matter. In one form and another they give a bounty of three shillings per hundred weight to those who produce sugar in France. Other things being equal, the English manufacturer is handicapped three shillings per hundred weight, or about ten per cent. This is hard for him, of course, and the result is that the sugar refinery business in England is in a very struggling condition. , But it is better that it should not only struggle, but die also, than that the Government, by means of a tax, should make French sugar three shillings a hundredweight dearer, and so raise tho price to the ordinary consumer by about one half-penny per pound. _ If the French Government want to give England cheap sugar, why should England not accept it? The French Government say practically to the French producer, “ Sell yonr sugar to our citizens, and to the English, and to whomsoever will buy it, at three shillings per hundred weight less than the paying price, and we will make it up to you.” Who would not boy French' sugar on these terms ? The gift of protectionest France to free trade England in the matter of snga^

amounts yearly to some hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling. This is what the French call protecting their industries. By this means, they have succeeded in building up an enormous trade in sugar, which codld not exist but for this artificial help/ Yery different are the industries of England. Her manufacturers can undersell the world if they could compete on even terms. They are not bribed by the Government to sell their goods below cost price; they simply make them cheap, and sell cheaply. In France or Germany, cotton and woollen goods of very inferior quality arc sold at prices far above the better productions of England. Why ? A heavy tax is placed on English goods, so that by artificial moans they are made much dearer than those of the Continent. The result is of course that English goods are never seen by the majority of the population. If the tax were removed, the mass of the people would save say, twenty shillings per head per annum in clothing, and would have to pay say, one shilling per head more in direct taxes. Yet they shrink from the one shilling of direct taxation with horror, and pay the twenty of indirect taxation without a murmur, because they do it ignorantly. In Russia the peasant uses a soft, clumsy, and dear knife, stamped “ Moscow,” and does not know that his Government is preventing him from having a neat, durable, and cheap knife from Sheffield, in order to make the Moscow manufacturer’s business pay. Why the Russians and others believe that it pays a country to make inferior goods at a high rate bettor than to buy the best at a cheap rate would be hard to tell. They probably have a dread of English labor similar to that which Englishmen have of Chinese labor. They say “These English work too cheaply; we cannot compete with them. If we let them alone they will do all our work and take all our money, and wo will starve ; we must tax their work and keept it out.” It is often said that in a new country protection may be wise, though a blind error in an old and thickly-peopled country. How then does protection operate in Canada or Victoria? Take the latter country. That the Victorians are a prosperous community cannot be denied ; but so are the people of Hew South Wales, where free trade obtains a prosperous community. Wc once bought a pair of boots in Sydney for 11s Gd ; shortly afterwards we bought a similar pair in Melbourne, but they wore 14s Gd. We observed that things were "cheaper in Sydney. “ 0 yes,” was the reply, “ there’s free trade in Sydney, but we have protection.” Wc doled out the money, remarking that if he was protected from selling cheaply, we were not protected from paying dearly. Some years ago there was an attempt to start woollen manufactures in Victoria, but it was soon found that the high wages of the colonies made the stuff dear, and that it was much cheaper to send the wool to England, have it manufactured there, and then ship i. L back. But this would not do ; there was an inexplicable charm for the Victorian mind in the idea of wearing tweed made in the colony. The cost was a secondary consideration, if indeed it was considered at all. The Parliament determined to protect local factories, and put so heavy a duty upon English goods, that they could not be sold in the colony as cheaply as the Victorian goods. The result is that English goods are excluded, and every Victorian pays several shillings more for his coat than he did before he, was protected. Many people have wondered how it is that there is such an over-grown city in Victoria as Melbourne, comprising as it does, considerably more than a fourth of the population of the colony. If .London contained ten millions, and Paris twelve millions of souls, these cities would not be greater in proportion to the populations of the United Kingdom and France respectively, than Melbourne now is in proportion to the population of Victoria. The cause of this very disproportionate capital is to be found in the Victorian system of protection. Instead of spreading over the colony, and developing its vast resources, the people are gathered into these unnatural factories. Every man who buys a coat, or in any way uses a yard of cloth, pays his contribution towards keeping them there. The great city of which the Victorious are so proud, exists only by making the whole population—except a few mill-owners—a few pounds a year poorer than they would be if they were allowed to buy English goods at their natural price. Thus the country settler has to pay to maintain a city that did not grow naturally, and the pleasure of living behind such a splendid “ glass front ” (as Melbourne has very aptly been called) is all he gets in return. But to return to England. There has been an out-cry for protection. That means, of course, taxing imports/ The duty on tea and tobacco is not protective, but is levied solely for the purposes of revenue. A duty is protective when it is placed on a commodity which the country importing it produces, and when it is imposed for the purpose of raising the price of the imported commodity. Now, an examination will show that there is very little in the lists of English imports on which a protective duty could be placed. To tax food is out of the question. The corn laws and the window tax have gone together. When food is taxed, wages must be higher, or men cannot live; when wages are higher, manufactures are dearer—and British trade depends on cheapness. A working man has put the matter in a a nut-shell—“ Vhen provisions are high, the people have so much to pay for them that they have little or nothing left to buy clothes with ; and when they have little to buy clothes with, there are few clothes sold; and when there are few clothes sold, there are too many to sell; and when there are too many to sell they are very cl»eap; and when they are very cheap, there cannot be much paid for making them ; and when wages are low

the poor mnn cannot live on dear food.” To tax raw material, as cotton or wool, is a still more direct method of raising prices, and crippling trade. There remains, therefore, only v little iron ware from the United States, and a few trifles from the Continent in the way of surplus stocks, &e., that can be sold cheap. With respect to these, the Government says, “If they will sell them to us cheaper than we can buy them, let us have them by all means.” It is the business of countries, young and old, to buy as cheaply as they can, and a young country is no more free from this duty than an old one.