The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1887. PROTECTED INDUSTRIES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2609, 28 May 1887, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1887. PROTECTED INDUSTRIES.

A southern contemporary we observe quotes the opinion of Henry Georgo on protected industries. Henry Georgo is essentially the apostle of working men, the revolutionary spirit who is prepared to change all existing institutions in order to give labor a better chance. The following words of Henry George may be expected possibly to carry conviction to the minds of workmen, who are now asked to support a protective policy:— •

In spite of all our protection—and for tho last twenty-four years at least the advocates of protection Ii&yo been free to carry their ..experiments as far bb they chose—the condition of the laboring classeß of the United States has been slowly but surely sinking to that of tho 'pauper labor' of Europe. It does not follow that this is because of protection, but it. is certain that protection has proved powerless to prevent it. To discover whether protO'ou has or has not benefitted the working 'classss of the United States it is not necessary to array tables of figures which only an expert, can veiify and determine. The determining facts are notorious. It is a matter of common knowledge that the capitalists' corporations, rings, and combinations to-whom we have given power to tax the American peoplo for tho protection of American industry, pay their employees as little as they-can, and luive no scruple of importing, the very foreign. labor ogaipat whose produots the tariff is imposed, It i j notorious that wages in the protected industries are, if anything, lower than in the - unprotected Industries, and that although the protected industries do.not employ more than one-fifth oi the working population of ..the United States, thero occur in them.more striken, more look-outs, more attempts, to reduce wages, than in all other industries. In the highly-protected industries of Massachusetts, official reports declare that: tHe operative cannot get a living without tlie work of wife and children. In the highlyprotected industries; of Kew Jersey, rnimy of I the'' prot«ct«d'l aborera are : children #OBO parents are driven by their necessities tQ find employment for them bv laisreprcgdhtmg their age, bo as to evado the Stato law/ In: the highly-protected industries of PoAhsyl. vania, laborers, for whose sakes, we are. told, this high protection is imposed, are working for G5 cents a-day, and half-clad women aro feeding'furnace fires. • Pluok me' 6toros,' corporation tenomeuts aud boarding houses, Pinkeiton detectives and mercenaries, and nil tho forma and evidences of tho oppression and degradation of labor are, throughout the country, charactoristio of the protectod industries,

If tl)0 advocates of protectioncarry tlio day in Npw Zealand, the experience of the Unitpd States will be reproduced here. The rate of wages will sink steadily to the pauper, standard of Europe, and if the .workers strike those who have money invested in factories will import foreign labor to supplant them. In America" the rate of wages has in some instances fallen to little more than half a crown aday. per hour, indeed, may be put down as an ordinary rate of wages for thousands of operatives. A protective policy virtually means making towns at the expense of the country, by draining labor into the dreary labyrinths .of populous centres. Even in New Zealand we have now before our eyes the lamentable result of the undue development of centres of population. In the Auckland provinee, for example, tlio town has.grown more

rapidly than tlio country, and what ig the consequeueo ? An intelligent Masterton friend now living there writer to ua as follows Things here are lawfully quiet,- and everyone as hard up as can be.. x The unemployed,"up 'to yesterday, .in the building trade alone were over 600 nleii,; l really donttlmik tliat there is' a- wiiglft; thing, in the place paying." Protection to Ideal' bodies will-no-dpubt tend for a time to relieve' tlio distress-, now experienced in large centres of population, but the'roinedy ia.only a temporary expedient which intensifies the disease.

country mil be glad to learn that the Government are defeated, and that the disastrous Stout-Yogel corn-, binationisa tiling of the past. We trust a new Ministry will be formed which will be able to complete tlie business of the session. In the present financial-position of the colony, an immediate dissolution is undesirable.