The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1915 THE PROTECTION WE WANT.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 29 November 1915, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1915 THE PROTECTION WE WANT.

uWith whicli is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.)

From time to time the question of trade within the Empire crops up in various parts of the Dominion in rather practical illustrations. Why this almost universal agitation is making no apparent headAvay is not very easy discovered. It seems quite apparent, though, that there is an opposing force of no inconsiderable power and far-reaching. (Mew Zealand industries that scarcely pay their way in times of peace have returned rather handsome profits for the last twelve months. Oh, but look at the huge profits arising from the war, say some. But such people, although they state what is well within the truth have not attributed the improvement to its real source. Our woollen industry, it was stated officially at the annual meeting of the Wellington Woollen Company, had not received higher profits and yet they -were not only able to pay a fair dividend to shareholders, but they were also in a position to give a substantial bonus to their employees. It was not the result of higher profits, but it was owing to the restriction of importations. The products of German and other factories for various reasons, among them the want of shippingcould not be brought here to enter into competition with our own productions, consequently there was a greater volume of business,and a bonus for employees at the end of the year. This fact lends colour to a suggestion frequently made that shipping companies and those who have money invested in them are the opposers of trade within the Empire. A shortage of shipping last year resulted in our leading industries having a profitable year; surely we cannot go wrong in assuming that if we can cut down importations to a similar or a greater extent next year, and ■ for all time, our industries will continue to flourish. There are those, however, -who pin their faith to protective duties, but when we are let into the secrets of other producing countries, working on cheap labour, and realise ■ the extent to which they are preparec to go, and have gone in subsidising their shipping companies we must rea lise the utter futility of carrying <• a protective war with such nations The protection we want for our indus tries is not that which will increasi the cost of the goods to our own pec f pie, but the protection that will pre | vent them altogether from entering in ! to competition with them. The Well ington Woollen Company has experi | enced.the fact that it can flourish with I nut exacting higher profits so long a | cheap labour shipments of shodd I sends do net. arrive from other entn: | trie?, rend r mng it Plainly evident tha I i'- Is net the levying of higher dutie jj v;c need, hut simply the limitation o

importations. We could very well support many of our industries as Bismarck did the German iron industry. He prohibited the importation of iron altogether, saying that if Germans could not make the iron they needed then they would have to go without; the world knows, only too well, the result of that policy. Our neighbours in Australia seem to be taking this trade within the Etnpire question much more seriously than we are. Perhaps we ought to say more persistently, for the deliberations of our chambers of commerce and other institutions have disclosed the seriousness with which a possible restitution of shipping from Germany is regarded. The Taihape Chamber of Commerce, be it said to its credit, has gone more deeply into the subject than any other body, but its energies are rendered nugatory by some unseen mifghty force. If this force is the self-interest of shipping companies, as the experience of the Wellington Woollen Companies and other New I. Zealand industries seem to indicate, then the energies of trade within the Empire supporters should be equal to dealing with all that stands in the way of what they have essayed to accomplish. German trade products should be replaced by our own, the primary advantage being that the money spent on locally produced goods remains in our own land, to be distributed among onr workers, and to be used in making still more work, and paying still more wages by an extension of present industries and the establishment of new ones. The 'Wellington Woollen Company has had an abnormally profitable year, not caused by higher profits, but entirely owing to the cutting away of German and perhaps some other competition. The profits they have made go to enrich New Zealand, not Germany. thus showing that the patriotism of buying our own made goods is distinctly profitable patriotism. Any organisation that stands in the way of trade within the Empire should be thrown out. root and branch without one moment’s hesitation