AMERICAN POLITICS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2504, 28 July 1888, Page 6 (Supplement)

AMERICAN POLITICS.

Lessons for New Zealand.

The following extracts from the letter of a gentleman at present residing in the United States to a friend in Christchurch, will be read with a great deal of interest at the present time. The date of the letter is May 23rd :—

"Times do not seem to improve in New Zealand, although you have had good harvests, and very fair price for wool. When will you people have the scales removed from your eyes, and double the population by introducing immigrants as fast as possible. Enclosed you will find something about the value of immigrants to Oregon and Washington territory. It is the same with every State and territory in this country, and any demagogue who advocated the stoppage of immigration would be ducked in a pond. It is reserved for the Australasian colonies to submit to the government of selfish fools or cowardly politicians in restricting immigration. You seiitn to think me sanguine about the duty oa wool being taken off in this country. The debate in Congress has ust ended on the second reading of the Mills' Bill, and the vote will be taken next week. Both sides claim to have a majority. It is announced to-day that duty on wool will be the test, and if it is removed that the Bill will de abandonded this session. The whole country is aroused, and the only question at issue between the two parties is a tariff reform or protection. The democrats, with Cleveland as standard bearer, will certainly win, and if the Mills'Bill is not carried this session, a much stronger one will be carried next. . . . I see in the New

Zealand papers an advertisement of David Proudfoot re speeches of Carnegie, the great Pennsylvania iron and steel manufacter, which are to be printed and circulated in Anstralia, as coming from Caruagie, who says—' He has by the eqnal laws of America been made the peer of any man, which was denied him by the laws of his native country." I enclose a slip from a New York paper, which explains the unequal laws of America, which enable the two Oarnegies and the pattners to clear 6,000,000d0l per annum. These very men are now employing 500 Pinkerton police to defend the cheap workmen they recently introduced from Hungary againest their late employes, who struck work rather than submit to a reduction of 10 pet cent wages, and 5000 of whom are on the brink of starvation now. It is the rapacity of such employers, thriving under a protective tariff, that has stirred up the people of this country at this time. Carnegie has just left America for Scotland, to splurge as the " peer of any man" upon the strength of his illbegotten gains. There a,re in this country no Jess than forty-three enormous trusts, eating the vitals out of the country, and each one is the product of the protective laws. You may without hesitatiou quote me to my high protective friends in New Zealand as being convinced the quality of all protective goods in U.S. is much greater reduced than the price. There is scarcely an article manufactured here but is as shoddy as possible, and such will assuredly follow in New Zealand if the absurd tariff rates, proposed by the Industrial Association delegates in Wellington, become the law of the colony. Nothing could be more suicidal. . . . I would not invest a shilling either in New Zealand or America while such wholesale robbery is perpetrated under the authority of law. While yon are legislating for revenue through the Custom House it is well to arrange for encouragement of the development of the natural resources of the country, but that is quite different from imposing a prohibitive duty on everything. . . , . You rather chide me for writing so much about politics ; but you must remember that I have been a " chiel taUin' notes " in the American capital while Congress was in session. Besides, I am intensely interested in the tariff question, for many reasons ; but particularly as it affects New Zealand wool, &c. I feel it my duty to assist in all reasonable ways the Democratic party ou this question.