The Press Wednesday, December 5, 1923. Protection.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17938, 5 December 1923, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, December 5, 1923. Protection.

In a letter we print to-day Mr I. Woolf, who is interested in the manufacture of brushware, refers to our recent artielo on the reference made by Mr Jenkin, tho ex-President of the Industrial Association, at the annual meeting of tho Association, to a passage in a school text-book on "Civics." The author of this volume 6elocted the brush-making industry for an illustration of what we thought, and still think, an essentially sound exposition of til© weakness of the Protectionist theory. In the course ol : his criticism the author of the textbook appears to have said that "we still " import by far the greater quantity "of the brushes we use." Mr "Woolf declares that this is a mis-statement, find upon this presumed error lie further presumes, not only to imagine that the case against high Protection fails, but even to accuse us of "reading super- " ficially" or "purposely ignoring" what he calls "tho tissue of perversions" in the censured text-book. Even if tho author of the text-book had been in error on the point mentioned, his general argument was not thereby impaired, and as for ourselves wo did not consider in our article the brush industry or any particular industry, but confined ourselves to the general case. But it seems to us that Mr Woolf has made a mistake himself. Ho refers us to page 392 of th© 1921-22 Year Book for figures which show that "the New " land manufacture of brushware actu- " ally exceeds imports [in the year in " which 'Civics' was printed] by approximately close on 32 per cent." It is quite true that the value of tho brushware manufactured in the Dominion in that year is given on the page quoted as £90,055, which is certainly 32 per cent, more than the imports from the United Kingdom (aa country of origin), which are given £98,151 on page 241 of the same Year Book, But our correspondent failed to take note of the fact that over £44,003 worth of brushware was in the same year iniported from Japan and the United States, so that the imports did most .notably exceed the local manufactures. Our correspondent wais unlucky in his choioo of what appeared to liim to be an inaccuracy calling for vigorous and confident assault, and he is hardly moro fortunate in his suggestion that the last tariff revision was undertaken by Mr Massey purely with" the object of obtaining revenue. Surely the advocates of high Protection do not really believe that the public has forgotten, their intense campaign, for higher duties, and their strenuous and successful drive for that upward revision of the tariff. The public's memory may bo short, but is not so short as all that. In conclusion, we must point out" to our correspondent that he is mistaken in supposing. that we "consider " that propaganda in schools as object- " ed by Mr Jenkin is justified. "We do not think that any kind of political propaganda in schools is justified. Our correspondent means to say, no doubt, that we think that the propaganda "as objected to by Mr Jenkin" is wrong. But wo do not. Mr Jenlcin's objections were quite unsound. We supported hi 3 objection on the ground (and only on this ground) that there is no guarantee, once the teaching of political and economic theory is begun in school texthooks, that fanatics may not take a , turn at it.