PROTECTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2343, 16 July 1887, Page 3

PROTECTION.

No. 2. TO TIIK KIUTOR. Hni, —The example of tho United States is often quoted, both by the opponents and defenders of protection. In pointing to tho results of protection in tho United States as most undesirable, 1 think the opponents of protection have the best of it. I recollect reading in the London Times an article by a correspondent who spent much of his time in America, that a shilling went as far in London as a dollar in New York. This is not a desirable state of things for Now York, especially for the working classes and persons of small income. I have hj ard it said by persons who know nothing about it that tho dollar was as easy to got in New York as the shilling in London. Those who know America best do not endorse that opinion. The intense dissatisfaction of the working classes in America, resulting in savage labour riots, as savagely suppressed, indicates a state of things closely approaching to social war. Whatever may be the state of the labourers in England, the manufacturing part of the population seem bettor contented with their lot than the artisans of America. In this view of tho case, I think your correspondent “ Harapipi ” agrees with me, and he has a personal knowledge of America. Protection has made America the dearest country in tho world to live in. Free trade has made Kngland tho cheapest. Which is tho most desirable? A correspondent of the Herald, writing from San Francisco, says that a decent suit of clothes there costs fifty dollars, If it cost as much hero, wo farmers should have to go without, and, if I may judge from some of the American farmers that I have seen, their rig- out is generally of a very make-shift fashion. Yet these American farmers who are fleeced at all points by protection, are men who produce the wealth of tho country. By far the largest exports of America are grain and cotton. The export of manufactures is small in comparison with English exports. Tho mercantile marine of Kngland is, I think greater than that of ail the rest of the world put together. I should think her exported manufactures bear nearly the same proportion to those of other countries. Notwithstanding the longer hours and lower wages of operatives on the Continent tho manufacturers do not contend very successfully with Kuglish exports. Mr Holden, Mr Muudella and other Englishmen have successfully established factories on the Continent, Was this, because they believed in protection ? Not a bit of it ; because they were determined to overleap the protective barrier, and to face tho continental manufacturers on their own ground. The present cry of tho Protectionist is, “ protect your manufactures until they are established.” Tho future cry will be, ‘‘wo must not abandon protection lest wo destroy a settled industry,” and so we shall be always saddled with protection. It would be nothing short of madness for the people of New Zealand, who must for many years to come, bo an argicultural people, to saddle themselves with protection that a few manufacturers may pick their pockets. Import duties we must have to pay the interest on our enormous debt, but let them be on articles of universal consumption that all may share, and share alike, but never with a view to protection,—Yours respectfully, J os. J. BAlice H. Wartlo, Tamahere, July 13.