WHAT PROTECTION HAS DONE.

Patea Mail, 14 July 1881, Page 4

WHAT PROTECTION HAS DONE.

Mr David Buchanan, .a member ot the New South Wales Legislature, writing on the controversey which has been raised in Sydney concerning the relative prosperity of New' South Wales and Victoria says—What we see at present in Victoria is an industrious population, busily engaged supplying their own wants. At one time those wants were supplied by England and other countries, and the result was plenty of money and labor for other countries, with idleness and penury for poor Victoria. Victoria soon saw this and at once adopted a fiscal policy to put an end to it, so that all the employment necessary to supply the wants of her own people should be set in motion within herself. Tin's revolution was effected with marvellous results on the prosperity of the people ; and however much it may be the fashion here to dispute this prosperity, no one dreams of denying it after paying a visit to the neighboring colony. Her manufacturing industries are simply astonishing, and while her mechanics and manufacturers are kept busy supplying their own ‘wants, they, like true enterprising business men, see a grand opportunity of extending their operations by invading Sydney markets, which Sydney’s free-trade and open ports enable them to do. If nearly £3,000,000 of Melbourne manufactured goods coine into Sydney in one year, do you call this Sydney or Melbourne prosperity ? It simply means that the Sydney mechanic and manufacturer has been thrust aside to that extent by the Melbourne mechanic and manufacturer. No doubt it is great thing for a young country to secure by protection that all its wants shall be supplied by itself, necessitating the calling into existence numerous industries for that purpose — and even if no other trade was the result the protected country would have little reason lo complain. But when Victoria secs a large population in New South Wales, and free open ports there, she immediately says, “ Let us redouble our labors, and aim at suppling New South Wales with all the articles we supply our own people with.” And she does so.