PROTECTION: A FARMERS' QUESTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2465, 28 April 1888, Page 2

PROTECTION: A FARMERS' QUESTION.

•♦ TO THE KDITOR. Sir,—Under the above heading your columns some few months ago contained a sp.ries of letters from the member for Parnell ; more recently you published a few short and sharp epistles from the war correspondent of the Auckland Industrial Association (Limited). I myself wrote on the same subject, and although I challenger) both .gentlemen to prove in figures, not words, that protection would benefit the farmers, neither accepted the challenge, although one did abuse me mightily and lost his temper over it. (N. B.—l hope lie has not found the same old temper again ; it was not a good one, and he is best without it.) The stock argument the protectionist uses when posing as " the friend of the farmer''is, " That protection will bring mouths to feed and backs to clothe." What I want to know is, how many years will it take, or what increase of population do we want, to make the demand (for the chief articles the farmer produces) exceed the supply? Of course a general rise of prices in the Home market for wheat., wool, mutton, &c., would again make the growing of these products payable ; but if a protectionist asserts that protection in this colony would benefit the farmer, he must prove that protection can and will do that, and he is not entitled to take credit for the rise in price occasioned by a demand experienced some thousands of miles away. Let me now put forward the following axioms :— I. Tlio prosperity of the colony depends entirely on the occupation—the profitable) occupation I mean—of the land. 2. At the present time such occupation is not profitable. 3. To increase the cost—by increased Customs duties —of everything a farmer uses, whilst everything he produces is decreasing in value, is hardly the way to induce settlement. 4. A demand that shall exceed a supply is the only legitimate cause of an increase of price. 5. A decrease in the value of our exports will increase our difficulty with regard to payment of interest on loans; and will also considerably increase the cost of freight both for imports and exports. 6. The number of hands (including women and young persons) emp!o3'ed in our manufactories is only about 4 per cent, of our population ; aud even this 4 per cent, includes all workers in timber mills, flour-mills, flax-mills, gold mines, ooal mines, breweries, printing establishments, meat-freezing, tauuiug, brick-mak-ing, and other similar industries that are indigenous to the colony, and that do not require proteotiou ; so that this 4 per cent, should, when considering the matter of protection, be reduced to, say 3 per cent. 7. Protection has seldom, if ever, been of ultimate benefit to the workers, though it may make masters millionaires ; in America at the present time thousands of men arc out of employment, and thousands of others have to work ten hours a day for a bare living ; in Melbourne today it is said there are more men walking about idle than there are inhabitants in Diuiedin ; and further, it is not the men who are yelling for protection, it is the masters. 8. The present state of depression is universal, it exists over the whole of both the old aud new worlds : to attempt to force a fictitious prosperity would, ultimately end in disaster, and in

the meantime would be a fraud, a delusion, and a simro. Let me now produce a few figures, and I trust all protectionists will ''read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them ;" let them also disprove them if they can, and let them also nnswer my questions. First of all, let me attempt to disarm all quibblers and men of a decimal fraction sort of mind, by saying that most of my figures will— fov convenience sake—be given in " round numbers," and further, that as the statistics of the year 1887 are not yet complete, I shall have to mix up that year's returns with those of ISB6 ; whichever yen.; , is given is the latest come atable, arid the comparison will be sufficiently near for ordinary com-mon-sense people. In 1887, the estimated European population in New Zealand was about 000,000; in 1887, the estimated increase of population was about 14,000; in 1887, the estimated increase of wheat was about 2,000,000 bushels; in 1887, the estimated consumption of wheat (for food) was seven bushels per head; in 1877, thfi estimated total export of wool was over eighty-eight million pounds weight; in ISB6 the estimated weight of wool used in our factories was two million pounds; in 1886 the number of cattle was 853,000; in 1886 the estimated increase of same wa3 31,000; in ISSG the number of sheep was 15,254,000 ; in ISS6 the estimated increase of same was 030,000; in 18S7 the frozen meat exported was 44,985.0161b5. ; in 1887 the tinned meat exported was 4,706,0161b5. And now, my Protectionist friends, let us work out these figures—Wool: We use two million pounds, and next year exported eighty-eight, just 44 times the amount we used. How many years will it take for the demand to equal even today's supply ? and will protection increase the price one farthing per lb ? Wheat * The estimated increase of wheat in ISB7 was over two million bushels ; divide that amount by 7 (the quantity used for food per bead), and you will find that we shall want an increased population of 285,714 to eat such increased supply alone. How many years will it take for the demand to equal even to-day" 3 supply ? and will protection put 6d per bushelou the price ? Meat : Unfortunately the returns from the abattoirs, &c. , do not enable us to estimate the quantity of meat consumed per head per rinnum, but as I have no wish to starve even a protectionist, let us allow 200)bs for every man woman, and child, for fresh and frozen meat, and loOlhs per hea:l for tinned meat. Let us also take the cattle and sheep slaughtered at 6001bs and GOlbs respectively, and how doe 3 this figure out ? We find that it will take an increased population of 282,000 to eat the annual increase of cattle and sheep ; a further increased population of 224,925 to cat the quantity of frozen meat as exported in 1887, and a still further increased population of 31,373 to eat the quantity of tinned meat as exported same year. How many years will

take for the demand to equal even today's supply ? and will protection increase the price one halfpenny per lb? To sum up, if "protection can bring us mouths to feed and backs to clothe," and raise the price of the farmer's produce in the only legitimate way, then it must do the following:—(«) It must increase the quantity of woollen goods made in our manufactories over 44 times; (b) it must increase our population by more than 538,298 at the present rate of increase—l4,ooo per annum — without going into nico calculations as to what we may call compound increase ; it will take (e) 20 years to overtake the wheat increase as mentioned above ; and (rf) 38 years to overtake the moat supply. I think I have proved conclusively that protectin cannot help the farmer in his chief products, but it can do one thing ; it can considerably iuercase his burden by malting every article of attire he stands up in, and every agricultural implement houses, cost very much more than they do at present by the simple imposition of additional Custom duties. 1 hope and believe that every country constituency will put this horrible thing a way from them, for although we know Customs duties must be raised for revenue purposes, we may insist that such duties shall not be increased for the sake of protection and prohibition. Time and space forbid the consideration of the lunatic protection tariff recently published. The idea of " protection for pickles," " protection for jam tarts," and of putting import duties on goods tint we export by the shipload, may be worthy of the brain (?) that conceived it, but its childish silliness is simply appaling. If the protetionists must have a sop to stop their yelping, let them go bald headed for protection against goods imported from such a country as America, which, by its prohibitive tariff, shuts out everything we could send them, except gum and Pacific elopers.—l am, &e., Waikato Farmkr.