TOWN EDITION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7821, 28 July 1896, Page 3

TOWN EDITION.

THE OUTSIDE WORLD

!" The stars in thoir courses fight against Sisera.' 1 The logic of facts is throttling the hydra of Protection. In the United States, its home, poverty in the big cities is rampant, and takes on horrid forms of degradation that tannot be matched in any of the world's Slurndoras. Victoria, whose boast it has been that it humbly tried to copy the Yankee model, has been going frcir. bad to worse under a Protectionist policy. It has had factory scandals that appalled Australasia, and has marched from deficit to deficit with a : perseverance worthy of a straight waist- ! coat. It has piled on taxes to keep out! imports that refuse te be kept out, for j the simple reason that there is only one I way to keep them out, and that has not ! boon, tried— i,e., to refrain from exporting—and while it has gone on heaping Pelion upon Ossa to form a rampart of duties around the people (to " protect them, to the burlesque goes), the people h?.Ve continued to grow poorer.

: The political condition of Victoria may be summed up in the words: — i " Another Deficit." New South Wales, ' with a worse climate, and without the : wonderful gold deposits which for so many years enabled Victoria to bear her [ load of fiscal ruination without staggering, has had a reverse experience. Freetrade principles allowed her to progress naturally, so that every step in advance she made she was able to hold. Last year she decided to be thorough in her devotion to those principles, and to have an absolutely Freetrade policy. What is the result ? Wages are higher in New South Wales than in Victoria, employment is more plentiful, the necessaries of life are cheaper, and her Premier can boast of an actual cash surplus (not on paper, but gold :'_ the bank) of over three hundred thousand pounds. But above all there is the example o? "Great Britain. Having to I fight the bitterest commercial oppon- j J ents, and to meet in the world's mar- j

kets the keenest efforts of the manufacJ turing energies of France, Austria, and the United States, the " Little Island lof the West" beats all her competitors, takes the lion's share of the trade, and pays her workmen better than the workmen of any ether country—United States included—simply because she is not fiscally fettered. But let us retivm io _l-w South Wales. If; hag fever been the plan of Protectionists to tivge the fallacy that I duties oa imports do not increase the cost, to the consumer. It has been urged, madly enough, that if you tax the foreigner's goods upon their entry into your own country it is the foreigner who pays the tax. Of course, the truth is that what tho foreigner sends is in exchange for something sent to him. If, instead of receiving all the foreigner sends, those who should get the whole allow the Government to take part, in the shape of a ta*, it fe they, and not the foreigner, who piy. But an example ;IS better than dialectics. A few weeks sgo New South Wales decided upon a practical "test of who pays the taxes, — the consumer or the foreigner. Both Victoria and New rfouth Wales invite tenders every year for certain supplies to Government departments, and those contracts were made the basis of the test. i

We will let the New South Wales Premier speak for litmsel- on this subject, by quoting from his budget speech the following:

Well, now, I am happy to say I can give thia committee one of the most convincing teats in the world of the difference between buying in tho colonial free-trade market and buying in the colonial protectionist market. Ac this committee known, the Government of Hew Houth Wales take large contracts every year for BUppliea for the publio service, In these contracts there are a large number of articles precisely the same, and in many cases sold by tha same. manufHCturars with, tho same brand, used both by Victoria and New sleuth We.loa. Cur superintendent of stores wectdowc to Melbourne two or three moutha ago, aud he took :he Government for thia year in Victoria and our contracts, and the prices in both. He took out lines identical iv quality numbering 121 linea, of which I havo a list. The pricea were taken out to a penny. He then tested the pricea He took our supply in New South Walea on theae 121 linea aa ao muoh in quantity on each lino He worked out the Now South Wales aupply on these lines at the New South Waleapricea—contractors' pricea. Ho worfeed out the same linea on the Victorian contract pricea with thia result, that according to the prioea whioh the Victorian people pay on tha Victorian articles, these w uld costua £21,069 for the year's fupply. That ia according to Melbourne pricea. Yet the Sydney contractors' prices for tho same article for which Victoria pays £21,069 are£lo,4oo.

The game of football appears to have developed into a sweetly charming thing "across the pond." The brief cable message describing the latest attempt at umpire baiting reminds one of the skits that Yankee papers publish sometimes in the baseball season. Unfortunately the mauling of the unhappy Australian umpire was only too real. The message says that women took part in the attack, but that is obviously wrong, iiouie " ladies" may have done so, but woman ?—Never. At one time a lady was necessarily a woman, just as a gentleman was of necessity a man. But that was before an unfortunate sorting of words under which many a "gentleman" is no man, and many a " lady " but a caricature upon tho sacred name of " woman." But, loaving that as a speculation for those who dwell in the sphere of psychology and ethics, what has come to football lately that it should prompt to such brutality 1

It is not that the game itself is more brutal than many others. Indeed, it lias many points of superiority over most out-door games and some indoor games—pigeon shooting and hunting among the former and boxing and wrestling among the the latter as instances. And we in New Zealand, where football is enthusiastically followed, know that some of our manliest young fellows are devotees of the game, and that, in spite of several exceptions to the rule, manliness dominates the sport in this colony. But what about tho exceptions? Worse still, what about the rule—as it seems to be—in Australia? Is not the solution to this apparent puzzle to be found in the betting habit? A crowd which has wagered heavily on one side, and sees victory going to the other because of the decision of an umpire, may develop savagery such as that the cable tells us of. We think that is the true reason of the threatened decadence of a fine game, and the position is worthy of the most serious consideration at the hands of those who admire football. The trouble in the East grows. The Cretan insurgents aro evidently determined to light, and, it appears, are as evidently possessed of the sympathy of the Greeks. Possibly, or may be probably, they have more than sympathy. That arms, itmmunition, and money have gone from Greece to Crete is by no means an unlikely hypothesis. Only the other day the Powers jointly warned the Greek Government against expressions which the Cretans could construe into encouragements to continue their struggle against Turkey. To-day the strong Greek antipathy to Turkey is illustrated by the cabled story of the slaughter near tiie boundary of Thessaly. In this afliray the Greeks do not seem to have displayed either valor or the possession of !i,n idea of iustice. They appear to

lii juietly mustered, v/011-annnl i i 1 t havo attacked the peasants wli > ! i 1 inily enguged harvesting tlurj ] Tiii;. is murder, nut A.nr, an ! lily will no doubt compel tiio (vi < ', (t vc i ment to pay eoinpenKation J! io <;f)n be no reason why tl i 1 I liuuld not nlake. Greece itm i outrnge, but every re.-uion v 'i) gl th and tho Power;', will doubt If ■) ti that view when -i .> d'-m" id made. Tbore is a liorrip-icati...., j ever, la addition to Greece sympsitin..-.

ing with tho Cretans, it must not be forgotten that Bussia controls to a Large extent the policy of Greece, and is also perpetually intriguing with a view to tho discomfiture of Turkey and to driving tho Sultan out of I Europe. Hence the Government of St. Petersburg mny be expected to regard with complaisance anything that Greece car. secretly do to assist the Cretans. Moreover; the, probability lof a. quiet nncle rending between Greece and Russia is heightened by the fact that the King of Greece is the: brother-in-law of the C«ar, and that the Queen of Greece is his cousin, she being the daughter of the late Czar's-j brother, the Grand Duke Constantino. A little family party of this kind can discuss a problem of diplomacy with much more confidence and secrecy than is possible when a couple of arubassaxtors hold a tete-a-ttte, I