Evening Post. MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1895. THE EFFECTS OF FREETRADE.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 43, 19 August 1895, Page 2

Evening Post. MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 1895 . THE EFFECTS OF FREETRADE.

♦ Histoet and tha experience of almost every country show that Protection destroys industry, injures trade, minimises production, lessens employment, and ultimately, of .course, reduces wages and renders the positi«i of the workers almost hopeless. In like manner history and experience show that Freetrade stimulates production, encourages industry and manufactures of all kinds, enlarges the area of employment, and ultimately raiaeß the standard of wages and improves tha position of the workers. Victoria aqd the United States are the great aaodera object-lessons on these points. The traditional polioy of the States has been a Protective one. Under the false stimulant of Protection innumerable industries were forced into existence to enjoy a period of fictitious prosperity, only to languish and expire when, as the natural results of the system under whioh they were founded, foreign demand for their prodsots was out off. The laws of natural economies oannot long be successfully defied by any charlatanry in legislation. The industrial condition of America waa becoming ao dangerously inflammable a few years ago that in a kind of desperation the M'Kislit Tariff was passed. Blind politicians brought up in the v Protectionist faith oonld not realise* that the foundations of their fiscal creed were- unsound and dangerous. They shut their eyes to all attempts to analyse or trace to their source the evils whioh surrounded them and were fast becoming intolerable. They could not- or would not see that these evils were the natural result of aoting on falsa principles. , They had been brought up to believe that ' Protection wjas good for the working man, and would enoonrage industry, increase employment, and maintain the rate of wage*. They saw that it was not doing any of these things, and, still dinging to these false principles, they said — " This is because our Proteotion is not thorough. We must make it so." Thus the M'Kinlet Tariff, framed to oarry Protection to the utmost limits of prohibition, wa* passed into law. To the great surprise of its authors no industrial revival or improvement followed. Bad became worse, and at last the people beoame oonvtneed that Protection was a fraud, and the M'Kinlet Tariff was swept away. A ohange so radical of oonrse produced a certain amount of confusion in trade, and no immediate improvement waa observed. The Protectionist! were exultant, and the Bepublioan Party, the oats, took up the renewal of Proteoiaon as a Party atj for the next election. But in the meantime tha operation of sonnd fiscal principles has asserted itself, and undar the influenoe of comparative Freetrade the languishing and dying industries of the United Btates have shown fresh vitality. A recent oable massage has informed us that the New York aortaspondent of tha Daily News " reports that there is a marked impulse towards retarn- " ing prosperity in the United State*. In,

" many manufacturing industries the em- " p!oyers are voluntarily increasing wages " by from 10 to 20 per oent., some half a " million workmen having benefited thereby. " The Kepublioans admit that suoh a general " advance under the lower tariff, whioh " they denounced as a Freetrade measure, ■' renders it impossible to make the i " tariff the issue of next eleotion." There could not be a more striking or conclusive proof of the value of Freetrade, or the soundness of the principles upon whioh it is founded. Half a million of unemployed have found work — wages have been raised 10 to 20 per cent., ttio Republican Party has been forced to give up reliance on Proteotion as a Party cry to move the country at the next ejection. These, indeed, are great triumphs for Freetrade prinoiplos, and the people of this colony must be blind indued if they do not profit by the lesson. If they want further experience to guide them, let them seek it in Australia, where Victoria's proteoted indnstrios have withered and decayed, employment grown less, and wages fallen, while in the free atmosphere of New South Wales, manufacturea of all kinds, as well as those engaged in them, are flourishing. A obange in our fiscal system in New Zealand is absolutely nooeasary to olear away depression and effeot a healthy industrial revival.