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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 945, 21 May 1881, Page 2

Whether British financiers and political economists will “ go in ” for a fashionable kind of “ protection,” such as that suggested by Wool, remains to be seen. AYe doubt it. We think it was the Duchess of Marlborough, while the Duke was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who yielded to the importunity of the local manufacturers, and lent her aid and encouragement to the exclusive use of Irish Poplin and other fabrics. But that was a mere local affair ; one of those items of Court patronage which is sought for at the hands of Royalty simply in the interests of Commerce. A very different affair, however, would an Imperial decree be, issuing from Buckingham Palace that the ladies of England were only to wear worsted stockings, coarse, long wool undergarments, and dresses made from “ bright lustre fabrics.” But it is not so much a question of social as of commercial and pastoral, even, indeed, of agricultural import,

with another smack of protection thrown in ; for we find in our late English files, that the farmers of some parts of England, are in the same fix as their wool-growing brethren. Notably the Norfolk farmers are moving in the matter, and raising a cry for an import duty on grain. From a recital of their grievances we learn that their position is an equally serious one. Between 1851 and 1871 the population of England and Wales increased by 4,650,000, yet in the same time only 1,000,000 acres more were brought under cultivation, while the supply of foreign food had multiplied itself four times over, and the rents of landowners increased upwards of £10,000,000 a year ; and then in addition to all this, the English farmer has the dismal fact staring him in the face that circumstances are not improving with him, for his rent remains high, while the prices are low. For this he has largely to thank not only American and Continental competition, but the colonies in these latitudes which are entering the English market, and, so far, ■ has success attended the enterprise that it will probably prove one more spoke in the wheel of fortune, which, while it cannot give him protective corn laws, does not grant him that which would be better—liberal land laws. Our advice is that if the English farmer wishes to escape from the miseries of an uncertain, and profitless tenant life at home, let him come to New Zealand, or go elsewhere, where he can build up a home that cannot be taken away from him.