PROTECTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3181, 12 November 1892, Page 6 (Supplement)

PROTECTION.

A contributor to a contemporary, when recently dealing with the fallacies of protection, thus pertinently delivers himself :—The public 'and of these colonies are their best assets. If Mr Dibbs, speaking in Englaud for New South Wales, has done nothing more, he has at all events proved that. Now, any policy which hinders the settlement of our lands, lowprs the value of our assets. What niniiey comes into the colony comes from rural produce, from wool, frozen mutton, butter, cheese, wheat, kauri timber and kauri gnm. Sheep do not graz°. in Qaeenstrret, nor is gum dug in Albert Park. Most of what the farmer buys is taxed " for the benefit of local industry " —"for revpnue purposes." Farming, apparently, is not a local industry, and " for revenue purposes" carries double. Auckland has a fine harbour, and we spend much upou our railways, but to what purpose ? We speud to improve our communications, and then block them with a tariff. What good is derived from protection does not come very low down ; practically, protection subsidises capital working in certain Hues. The labour employed in such lines gets about as much, extra as the man-o'-war'B-man got prize money, which "was sifted through a ladder; what stuck to the rungs he had ; the rest went to the officers." What to do with our boys is still a vexed question. There is a marked unwillingness id the rising generation to go upon the land. The colonial youth wants to see the world aDd seek his fortune. He wants to go to the other side, to Mashonaland, to the—but not to the bush. Village settlement has done something, not overmuch. The homestead system has done more, and in a pastoral direction perpetual lease is doing something. It is good news to hear of extensive bushfalliug at Gisborne, Palmerston North, and elsewhere, and of increased settlement in the Raglan district ; it would be better news still to hear of the same progress in many another direction. I