THE NEW PROTECTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 9003, 13 December 1907, Page 5

THE NEW PROTECTION.

FEDERAL PREMIER'S MEMO. HIGHER WAGES. Received December 12, 11.10 a.m. MELBOURNE, December 12. Mr Deakin, Federal Premier, has issued his promised memorandum on the new protection in a somewhat lencthy document. "The old protection," says the Premier, "contented itself with making good wages possible —the new protection seeks to make them actual. Briefly, this will be accomplished by the imposition of excise duties on certain classes of goods which enjoy the benefit of sufficient protection, and exemption from the duties so imposed will then be made in favour of those in the manufacture of which fair, reasonable wages are paid. In this way. wherever effective protection is granted, its benefits will be limited to those manufacturer? whose employees are allowed to share in them to this extent. "lhe first requirement is obviously to provide machinery for the determination of the question: What are fair, reasonable rates of wages Y The authority to make this determination will be a tribunal to be known as the Board of Trade, consisting of three | members. These will be placed in a I position of judicial independence. They will be appointed for a fixed I period, and they will be paid adequate salaries, and will be placed entirely out of readi of party influence. The important and far-reaching nature of their functions will, it is thought, fully justify conferring upon them this degree of independence."

Received December 13, 12.1 a.m. SYDNEY, December 21. Mr G. H. Reid declares that the new protection is wholly impracticable. k