TARIFF REFORM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 33, 7 February 1906, Page 8

TARIFF REFORM.

(To the Editor.! Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr. Cheal. and many other good Liberals, seem to be quite unable to see the advantage that is possessed by Great Britain in her policy of free trade. It is curious that the Liberal and Labour parties in the colonies should be out of harmony ■with their friends at Home en this important question. One only has to reflect a moment to see that trade, ail trade, must be beneficial to both, buyer and seller, otherwise the trade would not take place. The fiscal policy \ of Great Britain wisely allows the people to buy where it best suits them, and I think that th,e result of the Home elections shows that the policy of freedom of exchange, so dearly bought, is highly valued "by the great mass of the people. The Liberal Government is pledged to many reforms, but in one. thing they ai'a absolutely unanimous, that is that free trade is essential to the welfare of the British people. ' Why should we despise goods not made in our own country anymore than goods not made in our own town, or even our own home? If our people don't make the imported goods they . certainly do make other ■ goods to . exchange for them,- which gives employment to labour to the same degra?. The mass of evidence that has been'put forward by the Liberal Free Traders of England to show the success of their present fiscal system is absolutely irresistible- Mr. Chamberlain's own , Tariff Commission, deilirig nit 1 ! the hosiery trade, reports that a certain class of goods are made by cheap' labour in Germany and sent to -England. Now Germany is a protected country, and if protection benefits the working-man, how comes it that Mr. Chamberlain and his friends admit that in Germany workers in the hosiery trade receive little mere than 50 psr cent, of the wages of similar workers in England. No wonder that there is a rising movement for free trade in Germany—a movement that will shortly Tesult in the German Empire following the magnificent example of England. It" is within the memory of people living in Auckland to-day when under protection in England the total wages of a - farm'labourer, working 6 days a week, wonld not buy bread alone for his family. -1 have seen in a protected country any number of able-bodied . men willing to work for their keep only. Poverty exists in England, certainly, but that only proves that poverty is caused by something deeper than the tariff. The new Liberal Prime Minister ■ was ■ right when, a few days ago, he stated that the colonisation of England and' the giving access- to the land was an important reform. The Liberal poHey truly is as C-B. pot it at the great Albert Ball meeting, Tleaeey JTOQ Vtaue mMtX NHBU mOTuL DVOOSvi

to him I say, and may the British, people j have prosperity, which they -well deserve • after the long reign of Toryism and ex- j travagance.—l am, etc, GEORGE STEVENSON. (To the Editor.) Sir, —In reference to tbe statement! made by Mr. P. E. Cheal, in his letter j published in your issue of the 31st ( January that "for 25 years before the; abolition of the corn laws (1849), and! up to 25 years after, the average price of the 41b loaf delivered under contract to tbe hospitals did not vary more than one farthing a loaf." Does Mr. Cheal mean the average for the two periods of i 25 years each? Or does he mean the average from year to year? I well remember .that in the year 1846 the price j of the 41b loaf had been and still was as high as a shilling. Before two years the price varied between lod and 1/. | Farm labourers, in the neighbourhood of I Oxford, got seven shillings a week if single, and nine shillings if married. How would a farm labourer with a wife and four or five young children fare with bread at one shilling a four pound loaf? I know from my own experience of the time that we had not enough bread to eat, not to mention anything besides bread. Bread and water, and not enough bread, that was the result of the corn laws to the farm labourer- Mr Cheal may long for the return of the days of the corn laws, but those who had experience of them such as I had would be fools indeed to hanker after any return of such times. Besides, the principal permanent effect of those corn laws was to raise the landlords' rents, and reduce the fanners from leaseholders of 21 years' tenure to the precarious annual tenure of to-day, with its six months' notice at Lady Day to quit. The inevitable result of this is that the land is not cultivated, and Britain becomes more and more dependent upon foreign grown corn; while game preserves and gTeat parks, for such men as Richard Croker (at Wantage), the New York Tammany boss, and William Waldorf Astor (at Maidenhead), the owner of a large portion of the site of New York, usurp the land that should be devoted to growing corn for the people.—l am, etc, T. L. STEVENS.