PROTECTION V. FREE TRADE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3132, 31 July 1867, Page 5

PROTECTION Y. FREE TRADE.

„,'To &«<E<Utor .of. tha Daily Southbkh Crvss. Sir,— This province will never prosper until we grow wheat; and'b'rted'sheep. We cannot do either until wfroommuoe farming, ai sheep cannot be snccessfulJy kept on old artifioial pastures. It is impossible a new country like this can compete with an old country, or a country possessing. much greater natural advantages. In Adelaide, from the dryness of the climate, they can reap and thrash by the same operaation, only requiring to plough and sow ontfe in about every fire years, the burnt stubble bringing on tbe new crop from the shed ears. In Chili, another wheatgrowing country, wages are lOd. a day. Should there not be some protective duty to enable Auckland farmers to compete with these places ? Give us Lord John Russell's fixed duty of Bs. a quarter. Let us try to keep the little money left in the place, Look at our falling revenue and fresh taxation burning in the distance. Let any fresh taxation required be put on as an encouragement to our own manufactures. Cannot we work up our wools into blankets, and brew our own beer, and make our paper, and tan our hides, and make our own rope, furniture, earthenware, oatmeal, and a host of other things P The population increased by these pursuits would keep Auckland shops going, and increase the general revenue. Put a duty of 20s. each on imported cattle, and spend the money in making a road to Wangarei. The effect would be that Wangarei settlers would speud their money in Auckland ; the others now send it to the Australian colonies, and add to our depression. Cannot we take a lesion from the United States P The Americans are holding meetings in almost every State of the Union for the protection of their manufactures. They are now advocating prohibition duties on English machinery, 4c. They say, Stop the export of grain and all raw materials. Their leading men say, "Invite English artfeans and mechanics here to eat our corn on the spot ; double their wages to make them come, as we did their sailors in the last war when we licked the Britishers." Canada cannot send grain to the United States without paying a duty ; and I recently saw a statement that a variety of Scotch tweed of Canadian manufacture had to pay a duty of 60 per cent, at New York. Canterbury wheat would have to pay a heavy duty at San Franciico, but we allow California wheat to come into Auckland duty free ; and what for, for goodness' sake ! The question of protection is nothing new to me. I remember che panic and crisis we had in England 20 years ago. I remember going to the House of Commons, night after night, to hear the debates on this important question. I remember hearing Cobden addressing 10,000 people' at Covent Garden, the whole League present, and Wilson, of Manchester, in the chair. Don't I remember Feel's sliding scale, and Lord Russell's, fixed duty of Bs. j how many hundreds of leaves were signed on the faith of this decision of Parliament j what hundreds of thousands of pounds were subscribed and spent by that terrible organisation, the League, to crush the farming interest ; what combinations by American, Dantzic, and Odessa merchants, by holding back grain, to force the measure of free trade in corn through Parliament ! But all would have been useless for the purpose, but for the famine in Ireland, the potato disease ; and that only forced free trade on England. I well remember the hard times and distress, the Jioor labourer deprived of his accustomed ood and d{s.ph*rged fyom his employment on acconnt of free trade. Oh ! the misery I have felt as a Ppor Law guardian, in seeing honest, ablebodied Englishmen asking for relief because thrown out of employ bj free trade. And what ha? free trade done for the country at home ? Wages for tbe agricultural labourer are now 7s., per week, the same as in 1842 jin 1844, 1 paid 1: 6d. ; in 1846, 8*. ; in 1849, Bs. What has opening the ports done for the cattle jr*4 e *$ home f Imported tge rinderpest which has destroyed more cattle and of far greater vahjo than the whole of the imports for the last twenty years. What has free trade in cattle done for Auckland ? Imported pleoro-pnueraonia, which has created such a low and panic in the province that settlers have given up breeding. Where are our herds of nine years ago t where shall we find the number and quality breeders hgld then ? The war has unhinged and ru|ned the country. W§ were tempted, ancj. took our eggs to market and the hen along with thtm. We have shorn our meadows, and spent the money ! —I am, 40., Yioil.