The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1888. PROTECTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2868, 9 April 1888, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1888. PROTECTION.

We feel that New Zealand in the coming session will require protection from the protectionists. These gentlemen have banded themselves together with a strong organisation; they number many intelligent, enthusiastic, and influential colonists, and it would he folly to under-rate the influence which they are likely to exercise on the Colony. It would, too, be idle to pretend that a place like "Wellington or Dunedin would not reap a decided temporary advantage by a protective policy, which would give a local manufacturer, say at Port • Nicholson, a power to extract money from the pockets of every country settler in the Wairarapa. For example, we will assume the Port Nicholson manufacturer produces trousers which are now sold at eight shillings a pair to the Wairarapa laborer. A protective duty would probably run the price of these articles of domestic apparel to ten shillings. Every purchaser of such garments would pay an extra two shillings, and the manufacturer at Wellington would virtually collect a small contribution from almost every adult in the district, If a profit and loss account were struck, Wellington would take the profit and the Wairarapa the loss. A protective policy would be of 110 good to the Wairarapa, unless we stuck a Custom House on the Eimutaka, and were able to retain the duties collected lor local purposes, To Wellington residents, a protective carcase would be well worth picking, and the protectionist eagles are quite right in gathering together at this juncture. A protective boom opens up a splendid field for the speculators, Scores of impecunious men now walk Wellington beach who may each and all develop into a Jay Gould under the fostering influence of a protectionist policy. Protection gives monopoly, and monopoly gives wealth to the favored few, who fatten on the unfortunate many. Under prohibitive taxation, the capitalist makes enormous profits out of the thousands and tens of thousands of people who have to sustain the enormous losses out of which the enormous profits are constructed. The Ohristchurch Press, in a recent issue, cites the following admirable illustration of how, under the flag of protection, the monopolizing capitalist feeds on the vitals of the poor myriads

The condition of the sugar industry in the United States may be quoted in illustration of what we meai). The schedule of tariff duties on tl|c several grades of sugar i? so arranged that the rates oi> fpreign sugar which would compete with the refiners' product are prohibitory; and the country depends almost exclusively upon the local refiners for the supply. The refiners havo recently formed a Trust monopoly, and,the effect of the combination is already apparent in (-he prige of sugar. Practically all the retinorles in the'country are in the ring. The compaot was made in secret, but it is understood that the value of the "pooled" property was about 15,000,000 dole,, for which certificates were issued in the ratio of one to four, so that the inflated certificate capital is 60,000,000 dols. The trust is governed by ten directors, These ten magnates, sitting in secret council, regulate the price of sugar for more than 60,000,000 people. All that they have to do is to pass a resolution, and the price of sugar goes up, while the public are helplessly in their power, sheltered as' the manufacturers are under the wing of a protecting tariff. The gaui£ the monopolists are playing is a bold one, and soitU" it been quite 'successful. The ring has only been in operation some four or-five months, but it is shown thftt jts members have already made 12 per cent on their inflated capital, or 48 per cent on the money actually invested in the enterprise. The price of sugar has been raised several times within the period we lrnye mentioned, with the result that in four months the

average additional profits made by the combination have been 7,200,000 dols.

What a sweet suggestive picture! On one article alone, ten philanthropists combine in about four months time to extract more than half a dollar from every householder in the United States, and pocket for themselves £1,500,000 scraped bit by bit from every cabin and log hut in the dominion. It is of such stuff that Jay Goulds are made in New York, and it is of such stuff Port Nicholson capitalists are to be made out of the beach combers of Wellington. We trust Sir Harry Atkinson will not give way to the demands of men of this kidney. That he will take some step in the direction of prohibitive duties is abundantly evident, but we question whether he will go very far in the direction pointed out bytheProtectionistConference, and even should he do so, lie will be liable to a rap on the knuckles in the House. That he will do something as a sop, in answer to the bitter cry of the big towns, and as a measure of expediency, we do not doubt; but we trust lie is statesman enough to to know that the Colony m its present stage of depression can be better helped by fostering the great grain, meat, wool, and dairy industries of New Zealand, for these are our sheetanchor, and no amount of prohibitive legislation will relieve us when they languish. >