PROTECTION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2391, 27 August 1892, Page 2

PROTECTION.

TO THE EPITOK. Sin,—The only clear notion you formed from my last was an erroneous notion. I have no intention to give offence, and there is no danger of me taking offence. I see no personal bearing in it. If tection were to be as beneficial as you seem to think it would it would be as advantageous tq me as to you. I am neither jesting nor trying to show qffmy smartness. I am as earnestly and conscientiously opposed to Protection as you are in favor of it. I attribute no sinister mqtiye to your opinions, and I don't think anyone eouid iitti'jbute such motives to mine. We differ widely, because w.e look at the question from a widely different points of view. My only object in writing is to convince you and those that tjiink 05 you do that you are wrong, or to ije W by you that I am wrong. It is a public question of no small import. 1£ you show any inclination to mako a personal matter of it I am done. _ Before it can be decided which of us is right it is necessary to decide which of us is looking at the question from the right side. I am a cosmopolitan, and Protection is anticosmopolitan. If cosmopolitanism is wrong, I am wrong. "Yet it seems tome that there is no resting place for man between barbarism and that ism ! Therefore if thai* is wrong civilisation is an egregious error, and -verily mai| js a shadow and life a cream ! What could be more absurd, what' more hypocritical, than sending missionaries to every land to teach what we call heathens to say >« Qxix Father, ?' if don't bejievo in. a.

common brotherhood 1 One individual Fatherhood necessarily includes a universal brotherhood; therefore, my belief in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man makes me cosmopolitan. (1) Am I right or wrong ?If right, Protection needs no further condemnation ! As to my beating about the bush, and not answering your questions, I said I could see no good in Protection at all. That included that I could see nothing in your questions to answer, but I will now answer them more explicitly. They are like catch questions. Being an advocate of Freetrade, I would say knock off the 30 per cent we pay now. If the £3,000,000 is of more value to us than the goods we import, keep the money and don't import the goods—and vice versa. As a private individual, if I want a pair of trousers and am not able to pay a tailor for making them I would try to make them for myself; not being a tailor I could not make as good a job, and if I could get anything that 1 could do that I could earn as much as would pay the tailor I would rather employ him. Would you think you were living in a free country if the Government were to compel you to make your own trousers, or compel you to patronise a certain tailor whatever sort of work he might give you at whatever price he might charge you ? That would be Protection to the tailor. How would it affect you 1 A nation is an aggregation of individuals. If we are foolish enough to import what we could more profitably make ourselves we will get time to reflect after we get to the end of our cash and credit. But we would not be worse off than Adam and Eve even then ! The assertion that we require Protection to give employment to working men is too thin. Have our fields been made as fertile as they can be made ? Give us political justice and we will require no artificial mode of finding employment! Make deer-forests or sheep-walks of what the Great Architect of Nature gave for a habitation to man, and man will fail to find employment! Goldsmith wrote

" Woe to that land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."

Goldsmith was a dreamer, and it seems as if the nations have been racing to attain the realisation of his dream, and America is like having won the race, arid, deny it as you iike, Protection has helped her to what she now enjoys or suffers. Is it necessary to tell you that from my point of view Freetrade would suit very well. Is it according to your idea of justice that wealth should pay £360,000 taxation, and poverty the lion's share of £1,500,000 ? Mr T. Lee furnished you with figures, which you published when our M.H.R. was first seeking election, which demonstrated how customs duties affect the poor, which you can reproduce as my answer to the question. Would the poor be less able to pay an equitable share of taxation directly 1 Are the poor less willing to pay for fair value, in Government or anything else, than the rich are ? Your assertion that taking off customs duties would shut up every factory and throw thousands out of employment is a mere assertion. Customs duties are only essential to rotten Government. It is a way of making the poor pay for what keeps them in poverty. Government that could and would hold the balance even would need no underhand method of taxation. You say Ireland has no millionaires. Have her industries languished for want of Protection, or have they been destroyed by English politicians to protect English industries from Irish competition ? Isn't that one of the pleas for Home Rule? Her land is settled in from 5 to 100-acre blocks. Have they no rack-rents to pay to protected landlords ? Have they not an armed horde to maintain for compelling them to pay that unjust tax on natures free gift to man ? If Ireland has all this is it surprising that she has plenty of poverty, or that her population is decreasing. The Irish are not all gone to Protective America, there are a few of them here, and a sprinkling elsewhere. Your wholesale condemnation of working men is only partly true; there are to be found among them the miserable toady, guilty of what you accuse them with. If you had a little experience of what life is to working men you would draw it a little milder. Never ending toil and penury from the cradle to the grave is not the best culture for developing the higher qualities of man. But are there no toadies but among working men. Is My Lord Duke, who feels greatly honored by kissing the hand of a monarch, however guilty or dirty the hand may be, not as much a toady as the poor ignorant creature who sells his vote for a pot of beer. I think unprejudiced observations will lead us to conclude that toadyism is the rule, and not the exception, in all grades of society, from the dunghill to the throne.—l have, etc., Working Man.

[You are a cosmopolitan, and you believe in the brotherhood of man; you regard all men as brothers. Do all men regard you as a brother ? Think of this. The brotherhood of man is a dream. The Americans charge about 50 per cent, duty on our wool; the Australians 10s per ton on our potatoes, and so on with every country on earth except England. Then where is the brotherhood of man '( (C If a man strikes you on one side of the cheek, turn the other side." That is perfect peaceableness,but who would do it 1 Your brotherhood of man stands exactly in the same category. It comprehends a perfect social condition. But where is such perfection ? Every country, so to speak, strikes us in the face through the customs. Are we to turn to them the other sido ? Your reference to tailoring belongs to the division of labor department of political economy, and has no bearing on Protection. Is it sense to send our wool home to England to be mixed with shoddy and sent back in cloth '! Our assertion that if our customs were done away with our factories would be shut up, is a fact. Men in Germany work 16 hours a day, including Sunday for about 2s Od a day. Men in this colony work 8 hours for from 6s to 10s. Is it possible that we can produce goods as ch,oap as Germany | If wo cannot German goo/Is will kill our factories if it were not for the Customs. Then look at the product of the sweating dens of English cities. How o.an men in this colony compete with London sweaters 1 £)o you believe in trades unionism to keep up the rate of wages ? If so, How can you keep up the rate o,f wages if you allow the sweaters of Europe to compete with you 1 1reland's industries were destroyed by law, not by competition, for the special purpose of protecting English industries. It was very b.ad for Jrpland and very good for England. Your sneer at" Lip-Badicals " drew but the condemnation of working men. If you want this question discussed we must confine you to the subject, so if you write again give briefly and QQnglaely your answer to these questions : —• Ist—ls it wise to send Home to England our wool, get it there mixed up with shoddy, and bring it back again in cloth, and if so ? why 1 ,

2nd—Can industries, worked as they are in this colony, compete with the products of sweating, long hours and low wages such as obtain in Europe. 3rd.—lf you are of opinion that it is impossible for local industries to compete with the products of low wages, long hours and sweating, please state how you propose to develop the resources of the colony ? Pleaso stick to these points. You are now making your letters so long that few will care to read them. We can take up other points after these are discussed, but meantime let us have no more brotherhood of man.—Ed.]