THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2560, 21 March 1877, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1877.

The utterances of the London limes are always worthy of attention even though they are contrary to preconceived notions, and it may be on this account that the Press Agency have had telegraphed to them a remark which appeared in that paper relative to Free Trade in Australia. That remark is this:—"Though freetraders may be now defeated, their triumph is not far distant." There are few adjectives which when applied to substantives have caused more arguments than this word " free." Men have written and talked of free agents, free will, and freetrac'e for centuries, and even now the word seem-! in danger of being misunderstood, tillage politicians as well as legislators, gossips in the ale-house as wellas the learned in the land—thesespeaking as orators, those as convives—haveoften got .the notion into their heads that for a man to be really free, he must be allowed to do just as ho likes, totally regardless of the fact that were this principle once admitted there would be an end of civil freedom all together, for what would be advantageous to one, would, if he were allowed to do it, be destructive of the interests of another. So with free trade. The freedom implied does not consist in being allowed to sell what you like, how you like,, and when you like, unfettered* by any legislation, but to be able to export and import freely uuder certain conditions, which are modified or enlarged as occasion serves. For instance, it may be said in our own country, how can it be said that free trade exists when you tax the publican for retailing liquors or place an import duty on intoxicants? Granted that these things are done, they by no means interfere with the principle of free trade. They are simply some of those conditions we have before referred to, which.are made sometimes of necessity, sometimes for advantage, but al-/ ways, or should be always made for the good of the community, and are not contrary to the spirit of free trade... No one would say that the enactments which prohibited slavery interfered with free tradebecause they would not acknowledge the right of one man to dispose of another. If they did their ideas would be self-con-demnatory, because it would come to this, that one man was free to take away another's freedom. So with regard to the publican's license and import dut?es. They do not really interfere with free trade because the consumers pay them indirectly when they buy liquors, wholesale or retail; and as long as indirect taxation continues, so long will it it be necessary to tax luxuries, and these among them. This species of taxation then has nothing really to do with free trade. What the advocates of free trade really fought against was this, the attempts made to regulate trade in a way they regarded as abnormal. These attempts made by legislators from time, to time "may be divided into two classes. The one and the older one was to prohibit exportations, the other to encourage exportations, and to prohibit or to discourage importations. The end of both was avowedly the same, to develop the growth of the country by making it self-supporting. The one plan tried to accomplish this by beeping all the country had in itself and hence forbade exportations; the other tried to force the inhabitants to use their own productions, and so forbade any importations. Hence, under the former plan we had the laws which prevented the exportation of machinery, &c, and when it became known that exports, as we have all along maintained, were the real source of a nation's wealth, then men rushed into believing the converse of the axiom to be true also, and, considering that if exports were a source of strength then imports were a source -of weakness* prohibited imports, until the system was lound to be utterly fallacious, and received its death blow in 1846. The notion before that time was that the more a nation imported the more it spent and weakened 1 itself, somewhat in the way a man pos-

sessed of" capital would lessen it by every purchase he made. The fact was notcon-

sidered that a country pays for imports by its exports, and these enable those who re--ceive them to scud more imports still, only to receive more exports in 'return, and thus increase the trade of a nation. Of course if a nation imported much and exported little it would tend to weaken it in the same way as a man spending money out of his capital would lessen his capital, and ,this is one of the points which make men troubled about the future of Zew Zealaud, viz., that the imports are out of proportion to the exports. But this danger, if danger it be v would not be averted by either prohibiting exportation or restricting importation. The aim should be to increase the former and diminish the latter, but not by restriction in either case. If a man is free to export he will buy freely of imports. So it is with countries, if they are allowed freely to dispose of their produce to us they, will more readily take ours in return. Free trade briefly is a convenient system of exchange, and, if interfered with, inconvt£ niences all classes.