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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2476, 24 February 1881, Page 2

The Government believe in prop-sticks. It matters not if the supports are very rotten, very corrupt, very temporary—so long as they are props. Instead of giving the industries that bad legislation has crippled, a chance to recover their natural vigor by removing the burdens that are squeezing the life out of them, the Ministry throws them a crutch. So long as the crutch lasts the burdened cripples will be able to hobble along. But the prop-stick is not very strong, nor is it of durable material. Money soon melts, and this the promoters of pauper manufactures will learn to their cost. The experiment of granting bonuses to new industries is not a novel one. It has been tried over and over again, and it has almost invariably resulted in failure. Some years ago the Government of Victoria offered a substantial money bonus to anyone that would produce a certain amount of sugar from beet grown in the colony. A company was promoted, farmers went heavily into beet growing, and the bonus was earned, but when the Government sugar gave out, the beet sugar ceased to be manufactured. The effect of the bonus system is to injure and discourage, rather than assist new industries. The voting of money for the propagation of particular industries constitutes a grave misappropriation of the public funds. It is an exercise of patronage that manifestly violates every principle of political economy, and savours of wholesale corruption. Instead of allowing industries and manufactures suitable to the colony to grow or be built by a natural process and on an independent basis, the Ministry have taken the responsibility of dipping their hands in the Treasury and feeding them like the outdoor paupers of a British workhouse. These new industries are to be treated for a limited period like plants under a frame ; the result being that when the heat is withdrawn they will, in all probability, perish. If new industries cannot be stimulated into life in a natural way, they will never be sustained by this artificial process. Nothing could be more detrimental, more vicious, than the promotion of an industrial scramble by showering money at our young manufactures like coppers at a

marriage turn out. What have the small capitalists and artisans of the colony done that they must be insulted in this way ? Are they such paupers, that the custodians of colonial funds should shake their money bags at them ? The great sin of the last Government was its extravagance ; we have now got a benevolent Government. By what authority, we should like to know, does the Government as trustees of the colonial revenue, donate these funds to such things as- sugar, vitriol, and cobwebs ? Is this faithful stewardship, or is it corruption ? Must new industries be bribed into existence, like certain voters at a . general election ? If the revenue of the country is to be corruptly pitched into the laps of experimentalists, why make fish of one industry and flesh of another ? Why not get up a big consultation with Major Atkinson for the chief promoter and give the manufacturers of the colony a chance for the stakes all round ? We have no doubt that this industrial soup kitchen will, be useful in a few cases. The New Zealand Drug Company, for instance, announce that as their funds are in a flourishing condition, and inasmuch as they originally intended manufacturing sulphuric acid in the colony, they intend sending fora plant at once, and thus earning the Government bounty; Here we have the example of a wealthy Company starting an industry that they had previously made up their minds to start as soon as their means ■would allow, and earning a sum of £lO per week at the expense of the people of New Zealand for the next three years. Practically the Government have decided to hand over £ISOO to the New Zealand Drug Company for the introduction into this colony of one of the most pernicious and destructive manufactures known, but the profits on which are so great that ti would shortly hare been started irrespective of any bonus whatever. We hare no hesitation in expressing our firm conviction that this bonus system, instead of encouraging new industries, will hinder their growth. If manufactures are to be promoted and the resources of the colony developed it will be by a thorough revolution of the present system of taxation, and not by bribing them into existence, and then allowing them to perish.