The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1912. PREFERENCE AND PROTECTION

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 302, 18 December 1912, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1912. PREFERENCE AND PROTECTION

For the cuvae ttta* Heka maaiatmnoe, for the ttrong that need* remittance, For the future %a the distance. And the food that we em do.

Whatever may be thought of Mr. Bonar Law's personal capacity, he certainly seems to be wanting in come of the ele- j ments that go to make up a successful j political leader. For, quite apart from I a certain hardness and lack of inspiration, in the main b.e has displayed very ! little tactical skill in the direction of ! his party's movements since the retireiment of Mr. Balfour. In the campaign , : against Home Rule, and in the attempts j that he has made to discredit the policy : of social reform initiated by Mr. Lloyd i George ; the Unionist leader has committed many palpable blunders; and now ■ he Peen-.s likely to depreciate the chances ' of Tariff Reform, the best card left in the Unionists' hands, by a very manifest error in judgment. He has made a speech explaining the Unionist attitude towards Tariff Reform, and he has sug- j geeted that his party, before deciding on any kind of food tax, will consult the ■ colonies and Dominions about the course that ought to be taken. Of course, ive ', may fairly presume that what Mr. Bonar j Law really means is that it is impossible j to say beforehand precisely what shape the Tariff Reform policy will take, till England has a clearer idea of the pro- I ductive capacity of the colonies, and her prospect of securing an adequate food eupply from them alone. But ho has so worded his statement that he has Given the Free Traders a chance, of which they have promptly availed themselves, to declare that the Unionists have, decided to submit the fiscal fate of England to the judgment of the colonies, ! and to fix the price of food at Home so j as to suit, the require-inents of the Do- i minions oversea. Xo amount of con- | tradiction or explanation will ever quite get rid of an impression of that sort, and it is likely to prove a potent weapon against Tariff Reform in the hands of the Cobdenites. Of course, there is another way of lookin;; at Mr. Bonar Lu«"s pronouncement. As the "Pall Mall Gazette" points out, the Unionists have promised that when they regain office the door which was "banged, bolted, and barred' , in the face of the colonies when they offered England Preferential Trade, will be thrown open, and that the whole question of Imperial Reciprocity will be reconsidered. But it would seem that in Mr. Bonar Law's bands the Tariff Reform policy has developed a stage further than the point it had reached when Mr Balfour resigned. For where Mr Balfour talked hesitatingly about the theoretical virtues of Free Trade, and apologised for the unfortunate necessity for readjusting England's fiscal system to suit existing circumstances, Mr. Bonar Law declares I boldly for a policy that practically amounts to Protection, quite apart from the element of Imperial Reciprocity, which was originally the central feature in the Tariff Reform programme. The new Tariff Reform i = . in fact. Protection I pure anrl simple, primarily for England, and only in a secondary sense for the Empire. And it must be admitted that here Mr. Bonar Law's logical instincts seem to have guided him aright. He sees as clearly as Mr. Chamberlain that all the arguments which can be used to justify Preferential Trad? can be em-1 ployed with equal success in support of Protection for Homo Industries; he recognises that the welfare of the people of England should be the principal object that any scheme of Tariff Reform must, have in view; and be holds that the prosperity of the country and the contentment and happiness of its workers ran be most effectually secured by the means thai, every other country in the! world but England ha? adopted with success—the defcnre of the local industries and the local workers against foreign, competition by mean? of protective tariff?. Of course. Mr. Bonar Law is careful to assure the country that, in hi* hands Protection would never be allowed to run to extreme.-. Ev-en if he accepts.Mr. Chamberlain's scheme in it? entirety the duty of per cent on all foreign! manufactures would be 3 very limited! form of Protection. In f.ict, it raav argued with some plausibility that it wo::M not he in the nrdinarv tent* Pro-|p"-;r:n fl! nil. Fnr it his W:i shown ' by y,r. Holt S.-ho-Vp:: 0; her ?iat ; s-I liriar? that :ii! !om! ni ;n:if,i-■; vi ;. ,-n ] products pay whaj is equivalent ro a ten per ce;;i tax in the tray of due 3 and ■

charges of various sorts toward the administration of the public services and by other indirect contributions to the public revenue. It Is, therefore, maintained with much force by the Tariff f Reformers that an import duty of ten per cent on all foreign goods would only put them on the same footing as home , products in this Tespect, and should not therefore be regarded aa Protection in the technical sense of the term. However, this may be, it is difficult to evade Mr. Bonai- Law's appeal to the experiences nf all other nations as a sufficient justification for Protection. It is surely preposterous to assert with the Cobdenites thst all statesmen ?.nd economists and fiscal experts and administrators.in foreign countries are utterly mistaken, and that the Americans and Germane — • some of the keenest and hardest-headed and most successful business men in the world —are hopelessly deluded when they claim that Protection has developed their industries and benefited their workers and brought prosperity to every country *.hat has tried it on rational and eeientiflc lines. Surely the unanimous approval of all other nations ought to j carry some weight against the dogmatic assumption of the Cobdenitos that there is something intrinsically harmonious and perfect about what they choose to call Free Trade, but what is really a : one-sided and incomplete system, under which England hae no freedom to sell and no means of vindicating her claim to it. As to the perennial Dear Fooi cry, and the demand for cheapness, it cannot be too often repeated that nothing 13 cheap, no matter what its price, to the people who have no money to i purchase it; and that the assumption J : that a small tax on foreign food would I necessarily raise the cost of livincr at J Home is absolutely unproved in Eng-1 j land, and disproved by the experience of the rest of the civilieed world.