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Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 889, 18 November 1871, Page 2

Thk imposition of a protective duty upon cereals has given protectionists an impetus to insist upon the benefits that must accrue to a country frcm the wide adoption of their policy. The argument that a protective tariff has accomplished great things for America might be accepted as of some weight, were it not that facts point to the opposite conclusion. Those who lament the decline of the woollen and iron manufactures in that country are not slow to hold protection liable for their national disasters. Influential American journals declare that the closing of hundreds of woollen factories and the decay of the iron shipbuilding trade are entirety due to the mistaken policy of protection. The only ground upon which it may be held expedient to have imposed the cereal duty is that Victoria, by excluding our produce from her markets, has laid herself open to retaliation. It does appear hard that the farmers in New Zealand should be suddenly debarred by the operation of the Victorian tariff from availing themselves of that market for their produce, but we fail to see that in order to compensate this class the whole community should be taxed. Auckland and other provinces which have been in the habit of obtaining their breadstuffs from Australia and America must now become customers of Canterbury and Otago, and the result will be a certain benefit to the producers of grain. At the same time it inflicts injury upon the nonproducer of cereals, and it cannot be denied that this is a hardship. Where the question of food is concerned it is but just and in the interest of all classes that they should be permitted to buy in the cheapest market, and that the most unlimited free trade should prevail. As an argumentum ad ahsurdum of the fallacy of the doctrine we shall next have every trade and interest clamouring for protection. The increased cost of food will necessitate higher wages, and every interest in the colony will demand that, in order to pay these and create a demand, protection should be granted as against imported articles. Now that railways are being constructed the ironworkers will insist that, in order to derive the fullest benefit from their construction, a prohibitory duty should be placed upon locomotives and every class of machinery. So will it be with every manufacture in which we are engaged or which we may seek to establish. It will be argued that if protection is good for one class, it must, with greater reason, be good for all, and, if these demands are acceded to, the cost of living must be increased to an absurd extent. Assuming that the cost of every article of consumption were so increased by protection as to be double its normal cost, the rate of wages must be proportionately greater for all except those whose occupation did not come under the protected trades. The miner and others would be inordinately taxed in order to enrich the producer and manufacturer, and sooner or later the bubble of protection would burst, but not until it had closed all avenues of labour, and brought about the evil it was intended to avert.