FREETRADE v. PROTECTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2061, 6 August 1885, Page 2

FREETRADE v. PROTECTION.

The following extract from the 'Argus's' Adelaide letter is very interesting reading: The history of the South Australian Woollen Factory Company shows that, without the assistance of a heavy protective duty, the factory can turn out good tweed and make a profit. During the last half-yearithasniade27,s92yarda,andwhafc is still mere satisfactory, sold the bulkofit, having only £9O worth on hand, The profit for the half-year had been £657, and i's there are four month's orders on hand, and as the productive poweris considerably increased, the next half-year's accounts Bhould show a still better result. This, in face of the fact that the company have to pay 12 per cent, on all the material Jhich they have to import and use in the, fis»|iy, while manufactured woollen goods' are admitted at 5 per cent., shotfs what can be done by industries which are,, as it were, indigenous to a country, and which, moreover, have the advantage of : beincA well managed from the outset. Meari'°& while, the Tariffßevision Association, without aleader, for tli ey will notha ve Mr Bees, are doing allthey canto press on the acceptance ofthßeountryand of Parliament their 20 per cent. list. They have securedamodsrate amount of support in Adelaide, but tlie country, generally speaking, is dead againstthem: and even in the city some of themoreintelligentmembersofthe working classes hold aloof from the association. Mr James Clementß, a respectable carpenter, who was virtually ousted from his position of president of the Trades and Labor Council because he refused to give in his adhesion to Protection, ind ventured to assert that the working classis would be bettor off under Freetrade than Fairtrade, has had the boldness to write s letter to the newspapers, in which.he declares that he is prepared to prove, if the Association will give him the Mfiortunity, that the' 1 tariff revision list ;Ji,. it stands is the biggest fraud ever attempted to be thrust on the working classes of South Australia," and in order to give the public some idea oi the band of reform efcJ who allege that they have banded thenu selvea together to lift the the Colony out of the poverty that Freetrade has driven it into, he thus summarises the views of seven of these so-called reformers"No, 1 took a very conspicuous part in trying to upset the half-penny land tax, and was supported by a few more, and tried to show it was hard on the working man. No. 1 told me that £2 a week was very good wages for a working man. No. 3 says he does and will buy the cheapest imported furniture. No. 4 says it is the Early-closing Asaooiation that is driving the trade out of the city. No 5 refused to have anything but American doors in his building*. No. 6 says wages are not high, and advocates working men to work for less as a' remedy for bad times. No 1 says that 8 hours per day is ruining the country. Is any thing further' ned ded to show the consistent, elevaced principles which are animating Borne at least of the members of the Tariff Revision km- - ciation?