THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1892. PROTECTION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2396, 16 August 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1892. PROTECTION.

As it was chiefly to build up the manufacturing industries of the Dominion that the protective tariff was imposed in 1878, the light thrown by last year’s census upon the results of that effort has been awaited (says the London Times) with special interest. A census bulletin just received from Ottawa shows that the number of industrial establishments (not including mines) in all Canada rose from 49,92 m to 75,765, or nearly 52 per cent, in the decade, while the people employed therein increased from 254.965 to 867,496 or 44 per cent. This we think is conclusive evidence of the value of Protection to develop the resources of a new country. The fact is that England is practically the only Freetrade country in the world just now, and honestly it does not appear to us that she is gaining anything by it. At any rate, so far as we are concerned in this colony, Protection becomes an absolute necessity. All the other colonies have now practically shut their ports against us, and we must protect ourselves. It may be said that our tariff is Protective enough already, but that is not so. It is true that the Customs duties are pretty high, but then they do not descriininate between what is protective and what is taxation for revenue purposes. The tax is as high on goods which we cannot produce as on goods which we can produce, and the raw material in many instances is as highly taxed as the manufactured goods. This is altogether wrong. The raw material ought to come in free, so as to give our people work in manufacturing it, aud there should he no duty on anything which we cannot produce ourselves. What we want is industries that will give employment to the people, and these we cannot have without Protection. Take Kaiapoi for instance. There is £6OO a week spent in wages there, and only for it the place would have been dead long ago. There £6OO a week is spent in ready cash ; the credit system is practically abolished, and we know a draper there whose accounts are kept in an old almanac. This is what is calculated to make a prosperous country. During the last twenty years w-e have exported out of this colony goods as follows : Wool ’ £65,397,580 Gold £22,8 11,365 Grain ... ... £12,217,210 Flax £1,650,278 Gum £±,848,296 Butter and Cheese £1,579,492 Frozen Meat ... £5,434,192

Total £113,9(58,443 ]N T o\v this is not nearly all. It will be noticed that only the chief articles are, enumerated here, and doubtless if all our exports had been added up they would have amounted to about iiIoO.OUU.OOO. In addition to that we have borrowed about £50,000,000, and no doubt private borrowing comes to about £20,000,000. That would make in all about £200,000,000, yet we have not, so to speak, a penny to bless ourselves with now, Now, where did all this money go? It is nonsense to say it built up and improved our country, (Gold sovereigns are not cast into the ground like turnip seeds, j spd they should not disappear, yet disappeared they have. They have gone to buy goods in England, gone to pay interest on loans, apd hence the reason that we are poor. Suppose a farmer sells £IOOO worth of goods in the year and buys £UOO worth, will he ever get rich? No. Eut supposing he sold £IOOO worth and bought only ! £.500 worth he would soon be a wealthy man. Just exactly as it is with an individual jt is with a nation. If instead of buying our gppds in England we adopted Protection twenty ! years ago should have double the ponulajion we have gj; present, we should have double the amoppt pf wealth, and probably only A qoa.rter of the taxation. It is not too late to begin yet, we are still young as a 1 nation, fipd the sooner we adopt a policy of seiik»,e!jh;neu the better.