BURGLARY AT STORE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 654, 4 May 1929, Page 6

BURGLARY AT STORE

TWO MEN ADMIT CRIME DITNKDrX, To-day. Before Mr. Justice Smith in the F»;pren»e Court at Dunedin, George Spiers was < barged with the theft of «neat from R. Hudson and Co., and, tentatively. with receiving the wheat know;a g it to hare been dishonestly obtained. He was found guilty on the second count. Spiers and Anthony Cabral were p »o with the theft of a case and with breaking and en- * warehouse of White and intent to commit a crime, iaed were found guilty on sec d count.

IT his then is the position that confronts the politician when he is asked : by the farmer, who represents 11 per cent, of the population, to modify a ■ fiscal system that protects, not so much our agricultural and manufae- , luring industries as our standard of i Irving. Admittedly the conditions are j artificial but they secure comfort and happiness to a larger percentage of I the population than the conditions which exist in other parts of Lire world, and they are not to be lightly interfered with. It is impossible to put the clock back. Even if manufacturers were willing to forgo protective duties on .mports in return for complete freedom of contract in regard to the employment of labour and the abolition of ail legislative restrictions that tended to increase the cost of labour, it would not cheapen food materially; but there would do such a shrinkage in the purchasing power of the community and such a deflation of values without any corret.ponding reduction in liabilities, that most of our business organisations would be in the nanda. of liquidators and assignees, and half the community would be starvingAlong with this abolition of import duties on manufactured goods would go the duties on agricultural products, and the practical effect of this would be to present to tne Australians, who gi\ e us nothing in return, a wheat industry worth three millions a yea.-. Incidentally this would turn a large portion of the south Island i from .cultivation into a sheep walk, extinguishing the equities of thousands of farmers in their properties, j and when they walked off tney would be looking with an axe for the politicians who nad compassed their destrucI tion. 1 .VO REAL HAKDzHIP But before preciiriteuns toe eco- | notuic crisis toat would certainly | follow the reversal of tKe. pre&ent ftsc-sl policy of the Dominion, it is surely worth while inquiring what hardship I Protection really imposes on the farmer. A careful analysis of tne I position will speedily convince an 7 ! person who is prepared to lay aside I prejudice and apply common sense to the matter, that the hardship is more apparent than reaL The farmer has been told by men mho ought to know better that Protection increases the price of a locallyriikLde article by the amount of the duty collected on the imported article. It is not necessarily true, and even in those cases where goods are dearer because they are locally made, there are other advantages in producing the goods here in New Zealand that more tfcßn compensates for the extra cost. But tfa« myth it is necessary to explode in order that the farmer