THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1894. PROTECTION FOR FARMERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2706, 1 September 1894, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1894. PROTECTION FOR FARMERS.

Carlyle used to say there was more mischief done in this world by fools than by rogues, and we Relieve him. We can see through the rogue, and will not be deluded by him, but it is altogether different with regard to the sincere honest fool. He is honest and sincere, and very often enterprising, and, as (< one fool makes many” he succeeds in not only doing mischief himseU but in inducing others to do it. We know that what is causing all the. stagnation, now blow prices, and, of course,, if prices go to a. lower level it must, as sure aVday follows night, make things still worse. Go* efforts should, therefore, be directed towards not allowing the prices, to 'fall below the paying point if we are to live at all. Above all other commodities we know that the .ow price of wheat is lit the bottom of a great deal of the distress, yet is threatened with being still reduced to a lower level by competition with that imported from Ausralia. Shipments of wheat have already come into the country, and this of course must only make things worse. How the Australians can place their wheat on the New Zealand iharket and sell it to advantage is one of those things which no fellow can understand. First of all there is » duty of 6d a bushel on wheat, add the freight and cost of handling cannot be less than three pence. Under these circumstances, if wheat were selling for three shillings here the Australians could not get more than two shillings and three pence per bushel. Theu our land yields from twenty to forty bushels while the Australian yield ia from abont five to fifteen bushels. Let us say the average yield in New Zealand ia 25 bushels, and in Australia 10 bushels it means that if Australian wheat is sold at 2s 3d while New Zealand is sold at 3a it will take nearly four acres in Australia to yield as much as one in New Zealand. It is marvellous, therefore, how ic ia that the Australians are able to ship to New Zealand. It can only be- explained in this way: the Australians have a superabundance of: wheat and must get rid of it somehow., As they cannot get a paying price for,it, they have determined to sell it at what it will fetch. The point, however, to Which we direct attention is this : There is a suspicion that the present Government are disposed to increase the duty so as to protect New Zealand farmers from such competition as this, and the matter has cropped up in Parliament. Mr George Hutchison said the effect of increasing the duty would be to increase the price of bread. That would have been the case if we had not more wheat ‘in the colony than we knew what, to do with, but when our storehouses are full to overflowing, no increase of duty can have the slightest effect. The suggestion is foolish and ridiculous. The price of bread cannot be affected by any duty put on wheat so long as we continue to grow more of it than we can consume. It is only when a country cannot produce sufficient to feed its own population and must buy abroad, that an import duty can iucrease the price of bread Now the Australians have more wheat than they know what to do with, and they are sending it to this colony and destroying the local market on the New Zealand farmers, while they have practically shut up all their ports against our products. We believe in freetrade between ourselves and the Australian colonies, but we do not believe in a one sided arrangement; we do not believe in letting the Australians’ produce come in free, so long as they keep their ports shut up against us. The colonies certainly ought to interchange goods free of duty; their social conditions are very similar, their rate of wages is practically the same, and there is certainly no necessity for the existence of a Custom-house at all between them. It is, however, no use. for us to open our ports to Australians unless the Australians reciprocate, and for this reason we favor an import duty on every article we buy from them. There is no other way of bringing them to their knees, and the sooner we adopt severe measures against them the sooner we shall have colonial freetrade.