The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1887. ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1599, 25 June 1887, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1887. ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES.

The Wellington correspondent of the Lyttelton Times says : " The City of Christohurch electorates are not changed. A part of Stanmore is added to St. Albans. The rest of Stanmore goes out, and there is a new electorate of Linwood. G-eraldine and Wakanui are done away with. There is a new electorate of Rangitata. The Waimate electorate extends from the Waihao to Tiaaru. Grindstone takes in all the Geraldine district not included in the new Rangitata electorate. The Lyttelton and Akaroa districts are altered as stated on a previous occasion. The North Island is being mapped out, and the whole will be finished by Wednesday next." The Wellington correspondent of the Press says : " It is stated that the Representation Commissioners will conclude their labors next week. I learn that they have completed their first rough soheme of redistribution, with certain exceptions, but that they intend to go through it de novo, and subject it to a stringent revision. Their chief difficulty has been to decide on the three districts that are to be eliminated in the South Island, and these I believe are the exceptions to the completion of the rough sketch. The electorates around Christohurch are said to have given more trouble than all the the rest, and even now I understand it is quite uncertain what, decision will ultimately be arrived at. The most elaborate preparations have been made to render any premature disclosures of the new boundaries impossible. All the notes and sketches are left in the strictest custody, and all necessary printing is done by a carefully-selected confidential staff of compositors, picked by Mr Didsbury, the Government printer, and working in locked separate rooms. Before the Commissioners send in their report to the Governor, all their recommendations will be printed, and complete maps lithographed. There will also be drawn 'up a clear and comprehensible explanation for popular use, whioh will be supplied to the New Zealand Press impartially. Special precautions are being taken to prevent any paper stealing a march upon its contemporaries, and to ensure His Excellency being the first person who obtains the slightest authentic information as to what has been done. All this care is rather ridiculed generally as quite uncalled for." Thus the reports to hand are of so contradictory a character that it is impossible to arrive at any conclusion as to their accuracy. The account given by the Lyttelton Times is doubtless taken from a map prepared by the Chief Surveyor for the use of the Commission, and the question is whether this will be adhered to. It is evident that the Times eould not get the information while it was denied to the Press, but at the same time it appears to us more than probable that the Times' account will prove correct. Without any portion of Waimate being included in the Waitaki district it had not sufficirnt population to entitle it to a member. It would, therefore, have to get a slice of Gladstone to make up the quota of population, and as Gladstone itself has not the necessary number it must take in a share of Geraldine to constitute it an electoral district. Geraldine must give orer 2000 to Gladstone, if the popu'ation basis ie adhered to. Then Geraldine v* to pyer c > and t 0 replenish ae far as the Hinus Biyer, ana owing to this the name will be altereu t 0 aQ F I ' tata. We regjet the change of ? ame more than anything else, but as the Commissioners are all-powerful in this matter, and quite independent of all political influences, it does not appear to us that anything can be done in the matter.

PROTECTION.

On the May 14,1882, Priace Bismarck addressed the German. Parliament as follows : " The sucoess of the United States in material development is the most illustrious of modern times. The American nation has not

only successfully borne and suppressed the most giguntio and expensive war in all history, bur, immediately afterwards disbanded its army, found employment for all its soldiers and marines, paid off most of its debts, given labor and homes to all the unemployed of Eurepe as fast as they could arrive within its ter.-itory, and still by a system of taxation so indirect afl not to be perceived, much leas felt. The United States found every year a great and growing surplus m its treasury which it could experd upon national defences of national improvements. While the American Republic were enjoying this peculiar prosperity, the countries) of Eu'-'p-, which America most relieved by absorbing their unemployed population, ne'e apparently continually getting worse worse off. Beoause it was his deliberate judgment that the prosperity of America was mainly due to its system of protective laws, he that Germany had now. reached a point where it was necessary to imitate the tariff »ystem of the United States.

Prince Bismarck is supposed to be the greatest Statesman living, and he is a Protectionist, and Germany adopted a policy of .Protection on his representation. The Dunedin Herald says :

Dueiag the last twenty years the linon in. dustry of ;Greal Britain and Ireland hue decreased 18 per cent, and that of Germany has increased 300 per cent.—Mullhall 1 * statistics. During the last ten years the exports of linen yarns from England have decreased steadily every year until they are less than half of what they where a decade ago—British Statistics. " The shares in the leading flax-mills of Germany are 20 to 22 per cent, above par. The shares of the ten prinoipal flax mills in Belfast are 57 cent, below par." In 1886 the firm of Marshall and Co., established 100 years ago at Leeds, and the largest flax spinners in Europe, owing to keen competition from abroad, closed their works and have gone to establish new mills in Massachusetts, taking with them many of their old hands, They employed 4000 workmen. It is said that seventy millions of yards of linen were spun daily in their works. Mr Jacoby, M.P., a manufacturer who has opened a branch in Germany, speaking at Appleton, said:—"When Prince Bismarck put up the duties on cotton goods and lace ourtains, it was impossible for these goods to be made in Nottingham. I therefore opened a house in Germany," on which the Times remarked s—" Owing to foreign duties, it is more profitable to send Nottingham machinery abroad and work is than to oontinue, working it at Home." Here is an actual Freetrader, who represents in British Parliament a constituency of working men, employing foreign labor, to the direct injury of his long-suffering constituents. When Germans read of this displacement of Home produce by theirs, and see so many of our capitalists with their works in the Fatherland, how they must laugh at the homilies we address to them on the folly of Protection. The firm with which John Bright is, or was, connected has a branch in America. The Mundellas have hosiery works in Saxony, where they obtain labor at one penny an hour. Can it be wondered at that gentlemen like the Jacobys, Brights, and Mundellas, who pose as friends of the working men, Are Freetraders P Manifestly import duties would not suit them.

The evils Freetrade have brought upon Ireland is incalculable. We hare seen the effect on the Irish linen industry j on its agriculture the results bate been far worse. The cultivation of arable land has decreased from four millions of acres in 1869 to three millions in 1884. There oan be no doubt that the distress produced by foreign competition has been the main factor in producing the no-rent agitation in that unhappy country. Indications are not wanting that even our statesmen have their faith in the system of Freetrade shaken. Mr Parnell has told us that in his interview with Lord Carnarvon, on bis stating " That power to rev»rt to Protection Bhould be conoeded to Ireland," Lord Carnarvon replied, •' There I am with you; but what a row there would be in England!" And the Duke of Argyle lately said, "He was not sure he would not give Ireland power to try the experiment of Protective duties." When Sir John Macdonald was in England he was waited on by a body of gentlemen who were anxious that Canada should revert to a Freetrade Policy. After patiently heaN ing them to the end, he said;—"l know Canadi; you do not. ITtnow the marvellous ohange whioh has oncurred since ebe adopted a Protective tariff;" and, when concluding, he told them that " The proposals of the Fairtrade League to hare Freetrade with our Colonies and dependencies, and Protection against the rest of the world, wore in the highest degree patriotic."