FREE TRADE V. PROTECTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 169, 27 May 1879, Page 2

FREE TRADE V. PROTECTION.

. [Napier Telegraph] • It is reported in the Australian papers that 2,000 mon are out of employment in tne city of Sydney alone. The absence of work is due to the general commercial depression, and is not confined to any particular branch of trade. The Sydnoy Mail speaks of "butchers, bakers, grocers, shoemakers, cooks, weavers, sailors, ami even masters and mates of vessels," as belonging to the Masses suffering from want of work. It does not appear that the free-trade policy of New South "Wales has placed that colony on any vantage ground, nor lessened the evils that have come upon all countries alike. In fact, i.v Yfciria, the commercial depression seems'HJlfelt than in either New Zealand or in New South "Wales, To use the simile employed by Captain Russell the other day, Victoria has not placed "all her eggs in one basket.". She lias fostered industries that keep large numbers of people in constant employment, and, however much the consumers at the first start of protection may have had to have paid as the price of establishing local factories, it lias now been made abundantly clear, that Victorian goods can successfully compete with the English manufactures in the free-trade ports of New South Wales. This fact disposes of the argument that tlio poor consumer has to pay dearly for his locally-mado goods. There was a great deal more in what Captain Russell said in his address to his constituents, with regard to the fiscal policy of the Government, than free-traders would care to confess. The consumer has gained nothing by the reduction of one halfpenny per pound on the sugar duty. Sugar is no cheaper than it used to be; whereas if the duty had been increased by a penny, the difference in cost to the consumer would have been inappreciable. The extra duty, however, would have made all the difference in the encouragement of the manufacture of beet-root sugar. The cultivation of the beet would have given employment to hundreds of families; would have made small farming profitable, and thereby induced the people to settle on the land ; and it would have kept thousands of pounds in the colony that now go to pay for what wo ought to be ablo to make ourselves. Just at this particular period of the year, when in the best of times employmentjjbecomes somewhat slack, the beet-liclds' would be the scenes of busy industry. A mistaken policy puts an effectual stop to the successful manafactuve of beet-root sugar, for the reason that it cannot compete on level terms with that made from cane, until tho business has been thoroughly established. A few years of very slight self-denial, in tho form of paying a penny extra per pound for sugar, would do much more for the establishment of a splendid industry than all tho offers of bonuses to capitalists to enter upon what, under existing fiscal arrangements, would be but a very doubtful experiment.