THE Temuka Leader. THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1894. COMMERCIAL UNION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2639, 29 March 1894, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1894. COMMERCIAL UNION.

Fbom the moment it was first suggested, up to the presert time, we have regarded Imperial Federation as a very ridiculous proposal. Our readers will no doubt remember how frequently we have condemned it as utterly impossible, and now time has proved how accurately we gauged the temper of the age. The Imperial Federation League is dead, but those who formed it are attempting to reanimate it ■ under the name of a Commercial Union of the Empire. Groat is the fall from the high-sounding grandiloquent name of Imperial Federation to the common, vulgar, one of Commercial Union. Imperial Federation conveys to the mind the idea of a vast, mighty Empire, governed by princes, lords, and commons; great statesmen, renowned soldiers; everything is great, glorious, and powerful. Commercial Union drags down the mind > o the level of a paltry Chamber of Commerce, whose sordid ideas never rise above £.s,d, and yet these London gentlemen who have been promoting both schemes think that though they were not able to allure us with the dazzling splendour of the first they will entrap us with the almighty dollar which is dangled before us in the second. They do not understand the colonies yet. They draw their conclusions from the utterances of a few wealthy colonists, who go home fishing for a knighthood, and pretend to expound the public opinion of Australasia. These gentlemen are not in sympathy with Australian sentiment, and they do not understand it. If English statesmen desire to understand Australian thought and aspiration, they must consult the Australian people. Let us speak for New Zealand. Our first idea is that we are free, and that we mean to remain so, aud shall never consent to be governed by any higher authority than our own Parliament. The aim of Imperial federation was to make our Legislative Assembly a mere Provincial Council, whose actions would be controlled by an Imperial Parliament; the aim of the proposed Commercial Union is to control our Commerce, aud the idea underlying all is to secure our trade to England. Grand as the conception of Imperial federation appears, the object in view was exactly the same as that sought by a Commercial Union. The whole idea is to try to induce us to abolish our customhouse duties; let our industries perish, and use exclusively the products of English industry. Perish colonial industry, flourish English industry, sums up all that is involved in these great efforts that are being put forth to unite more closely together the various dependencies of the British Empire.

Now is not this nonsense '{ Who has heard of any disposition on the part of any British, colony to separate from the British Empire? A section of the Canadian people have certainly shown a disposition to throw in their lot with America, but they found themselves greatly in the minority, and nothing has been heard of them since. There is, therefore, no need for this anxiety to unite the colonies more closely to the Empire, and any effort in this direction will lead to, ultimate dismemberment. What caused America to separate from England 1 The greed and avarice of England. The English Parliament thought to lessen taxation on the people of England, by making the Americans pay it, and hence the rebellion. Now, behind these high-falutiu ideas of Imperial Federation and Commercial Union is the same greediness and avariciousness, which led to American separation. The English manufacturer sees the colonies developing their own industries, and is afraid that the day will come when wo shall, like the Americans, do without his goods. This is the cause of the whole anxiety concerning Imperial unity, but we doubt if colonisis are to be caught with chaff of this kiud, In the colonies we have eight hours work and eight hours play, and fair wages; we have the most liberal franchise it would be possible to conceive, and grand prospects of a glorious future. England is offering a refuge to all the human rubbish of Europe, and manufacturing goods by means of the sweatiug labour of these miserable wretches, whose lives are being c ushed out of them iu dens which are ouly a shade better than the Black Hole of Calcutta. England is keeping her own workmen idle, or turning them adrift on the face of the earth, for the sake of getting goods produced cheaper by means of this miserable foreign labour. Are Australian workmen going to enter into a commercial partnership so sordid and so inhuman '! Are they going to enter into competition with miserable sweaters who work very often 10 hours a day to earn sufficient to buy bread ! Certaiuly not, and England may as well understand it at once. Let those colonists who fish after titles say what they will: let them attempt to bargain for terms, and so on ; but the final decision rests with r the Australian people, and no treaty of this kind cau be entered into without their cousout. For what reason should Australians consent to allow their industries to be crushed for the benefit of English manufacturers ! What favor does England show us? None whatsoever. She buys our grain and frozen meat and wool just because she wants them, but she is as ready to take them from the unmentionable Turk. We owe her nothing except a very big debt, the interest of which we must pay with the regularity of clockwork. If, howtver, British statesmen have higher motives than £.s.d., iu uniting more closely England and her dependencies, there is a way iu which she can do it. She has possessions iu all parts of the earth. Every climate yields to her its fruit—tropical, sub-tropical, temperate, fr gid, it is all the same. Within her own dominions, therefore, she can produce even thing necessary for either human c-nifi'i’t or luxury; she need never go beyond tilD coniines of licr uß'lf possessions for anything necessary for the happiness of her people. That being so, shj can live independent of the whole woild, and is thus circumstanced as no nation has ever been before. Lot her chon rely on her own resources, and protect them frnn outside competition ; let her establish a uniform rate of wage*, and make the hours of labor the same iu all party of fior vast dominion ; lot h nres.oryo for her aong and daughters t io fiojd of labor to which they qayp he m born heirs; let her convert eolqniaf indebtedness into 2i per cent, consols, if. id establish a State Bank, whoso paper money shall puss current at par iu all parts of tho empire; let her regulate

her affairs so that there shall be no unemployed, no sweating,no squalid misery; let all parts of the empire be placed on equal footing with equal advantages, and then Australian colonies will not h-sitate to enter such federation. Colonists are not afraid of competition on equal terms, but they certainly will not compete under existing circumstances, and neither will they agree to any proposal which would drag them down to the social condition of the sweaters of London dens. THE COLONY’S CREDIT. The London correspondent of several of our Conservative contemporaries says that the credit of New Zealand never stood so high as it does at present in the London market. This, he says, is due to the “ nonborrowing policy initiated with stern determination by the Atkinson Government, and followed up by the present Administration.” This is delightful. The coolness with which our friends can lie is really admirable. The late Atkinson Government borrowed about 2£ millions in three years, and, like Bumble’s paupers, they were asking for more when they went out of office, yet our Tory Conservatives have the unspeakable assurance to say that they initiated the non-borrowing policy! However, possibly this sort of ihing amuses them, and does nobody harm. At any rate, the result of last election proves that very few take much notice of what they say. Everybody now knows who initiated the non-borrowing policy, and who raised the credit of the colony. In the face of the fact that the credit of the colony never stood so high, what is the use of saying that the policy of the Government is driving capital out of the country!