PROTECTIONS

Clutha Leader, Volume XXI, Issue 1041, 6 July 1894, Page 3

PROTECTIONS

I observe that pestiferous dragon, protection, is lifting;, its head again among us, this time in Auckland among the fruitgrowers, a number of whom, at a late conference, passed a resolution to pray Government to levy a duty on imported fruit as per a list. It is the old story again. The whole population of New Zealand — except the fruitgrowers themselves — is to be injured by raising by law the price of fruit in order to benefit a few fruitgrowers in the "Cotdny. Now good fruit is a very pleasant, thing to eat, and the eating of good ripe fruit is well known to be highly beneficial to the health. Jt is a great advantage (o the people of this country to have a cheap supply of fruit, and one advantage of our propinquity to the South j Sea Islands is the ability to obtain from such islands a large and cheap supply of tropical fruits. This sort of i protection seems to me very like robbery. It is the robbing of the country of a great advantage — viz., a cheap supply of fruit, in order to benefit a single class, and that by no means a I very large one. I grow a little fruit | myself, and should very well like to see the price of fruit rise in a fair way by a larger consumption of fruit, and more demand for it, but I don't want the price to be raised by resort to unfair laws. I trust the Government will have sense of justice enough to withstand all attempts to raise the price of fruit in the Colony by the imposition of a protective duty.