THE PROTECTIONISTS' SIDE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2728, 7 January 1890, Page 3

THE PROTECTIONISTS' SIDE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— An article appears in your Tuesday's issue on the subject of Freetrade and Protection, so grossly misleading in its statements, that I must ask you, as professing to "do equal justice to all men," to publish this letter. The writer, taking the American importation of hosiery as his text, preaches us a sermon, of which the lame and impotent conclusion is that all Protectionists are "crafty schemers" and "scheming knaves." As a Protectionist reader, and, in general, an admirer of your par>er, who, nevertheless, considers himself neither a "crafty schemer" nor a "scheming knave," I wish to expose what I cannoii but think, must be a deliberate attempt- ° n the part of the writer of the article, to deceive an unthinking public, Tf I am wrong in my suspicion of fraud, and tho statements inado in the articlo, the result merely of gross ignorance, I would advise the writer to give up such important questions as "Freetrado and Protection, and confine himself to writing ■ about Band of Hope meetings, teetotal lectures, or something equally simple. Tho ' ; ter of the article in question takes the in >unt of the duty paid on imported and reckoning the amount of duty that would have to be paid on all hosiery manufactured in the States had it been imported, states this amount to be the booty, secured by the American' manufacturer from the consumer over and above the fair profit lie would be entitled to. A more abominable and contemptible attempt to vilifjr the Protectionists cause I never met with. The writer of that article cannot fail to be awara of the fact " that the material which enters moat largely into the manufacture of hosiery b wool, and that there is an enormous ta.c on that article whisli enables the farmer to demand a price from the manufacturer almost double that paid by his English competitor. So that from the profit with which the writer of your article credits the manufacturer must be deducted an amount paid directly to the farmer,

which for all he or I know may swallow up the whole of tho pretended profit. Wriling an article of which the avowed intention is to prejudice the farmer's mind against protection, he has taken one of the few instances in which the farmer does directly benefit from that policy. I would advise that gentleman whose utterances ressemble more the frantic mondacity of the teetotal lecturer rather than the calm well digested thought of a trained journalist to retire to the privacy of his apartment and commune with his soul, whether he shall consider himself more knave than fool, or more fool than knave. An occupation interesting in itself, and perchance likely to prove beneficial to his moral and intellectual man. As for his assertion that increases the price of manufactured articles to the consumer. I utterly dispute it, and if he can prove it, or if I cannot disprove it, I will become as enthusiastic a Free-trader as I am zealous Protectionist. It is on this that the Free-trader mainly bases hn opposition to Protection, it gone, he ha* not a leg stand on. Let us see how far facta bear out his assertion. If a farmer in this Free-trade colony buys a reaper i-nd binder, he must pay for it from £40 to £bO, in tho States under the blighting influence of protection he could get the same tor from £25 to £40. The same with ploughs, buggies, waggons, and in almost every class of manufactured goods the advantage is all on the protected country's nde. Protection cheapens manufactured goods to the consumer. Is it "not so in our own country.- - Are not clothes and books, candleii and soap and other things, the manufacture of which could never have been started without some measure of protection, cheaper now than when the importer had unbridled sway, and I maintain that more perfect protection wouW result in lower prices. Are the manufactures started and maintained by protection of no benefit to tho country? Go on thou wise freetrader, sweep from our country's face the accursed results of an accursed system ; burn our mills and factories, make village settlers of our artisans ; increase prices to our farmers by reducing their market, the wages of the working man by decreasing the demand for his labor ; then shall the salaried parasites of our land boy butter for a penny a pound, and the importer, our manufactures destroyed, resume his benificent pre-eminence. Is there a sane man who would suggest such a course? And vet, if freetrade is good and protection bad there is no choice. He states that protection does not increase the value of agricultural produce. Bo is partly right, until town and country are so equalised that the demand for agricultural produce becomes as great as the supply of it, low prices must prevail. Were I to start the tnEinufacture of wooden legs and were to make more than the increased demand created by our local hospitals' would warrant should I not have to sell them as firewood.

So with the farmer, if ho produces more wheat or butter than can be consumed in his range of markets, ho must sell them .it a piice at. which it will pay the starchmaker or soap-boiler to buy them. But if protection has not increased the price of agricultural produce in the States, is it nothing that it has decreased the price of every manufactured article; is it nothing than by its influence millions of the most wretched careworn toilers of crowded Europe have beeu able to settle in happy prosperous homes on America's broad lands ; is it nothing that under Protection it is rapidly becoming the richest and most powerful country in the world ; and would it be nothing were other millions induced to occupy the empty acres of our land in happiness and prosperity, helping us to bear the lightened burden of our debt and to confirm the dignity and 3afely of our State. I will inflict you no longer, but asking you to hesitate before you allow again a large proportion of your readers to be stigmatised as crafty schemers and Bcheming knaves, I am yours truly. Ciias. Bakwbll.