LANDLORDISM AND PROTECTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 136, 9 June 1906, Page 9

LANDLORDISM AND PROTECTION.

| TO THB EDITOB. Sin— Protectionists hold that if Freetead/ were adopted in New Zealand it would cripple our local industries and throw out of employment! a large army of men now dependent upon those industries for a livelihood. No doubt this is true to some extent, but as a Freetrader I do not see why the majority of the population should be wedded to Protection for all time in the interests of a, small minority, and especially in tihe interests of a few employers of labour. Protective tariffs are all very well for our commercial magnates, -but why should we be taxed in order to further enrich fihem? The ' imposition of tariffs simply means that we have to pay in the aggregate a huge toll for everything we wear and use. Freetrade has not ruined England; on the contrary, she has prospered exceedingly .under dt, whereas, under Pro- j tection, her masses were starving. Why, I then, ' should not New Zealand prosper under Freetrade? In my opinion, we should be much better off .with Freetrade than we are now, even if some of our industries were swallowed up. Protection prevents us getting things we all want; instead of increasing it lessens our national wealth; it) drives capital and labour ito the least profitable occuptions; and it is founded on the fallacy that we can most enrich ourselves by being self-contained and ceasing to receive manufactures frnm otfher nations. It 'S a fact worth noting that the trades which flourish most in this colony are Chose which are not protected — for example, the paper trade. I notice in a newspaper report of a meetina; of the shareholders of one of the paper manufacturing companies that they have declared a dividend of 7 per cent, and added a sum to their reserve fund equivalent tp another 7 per cent. If all the unprotected industries of tiis colony do las well as that, why on earth should we have Protfection for the other industries? I Tather think that the effect of Freetrade would be to put all the manufacturing firms on their meritfe and stimulate them to adopt much-needed up-to-date methods. There is nothing like healthy competition for trade; it is bracing and stimulating. What we want here is a great agricultural and pastoral population — the mainstay and llbe backbone of any country. But how are we going to get this in the absence of more attractive inducements to the people to settle on the land, and if most of our energies are to be for ever devoted, to bolstering up local industries? It may be said by some that the adoption of Freetaide would result in a substantial reduction of the workers' wages, and that they would-be worse off under Freetrade than they are now. But tlhere is a very effective way 'of providing against such a contingency — put a stiff and progressive tax on land values. This would ensure the woriters getting that value which they give to the land by their .presence, but of which they are now ruthlessly robbed. They have already been robbed of many millions, and so long as thej aie content .to allow this daily and hourly confiscation of their earnings to continue, so long will they be at the mercy of the "lords of the soil." .The only panacea for all the woes of labour is, (1) fax out rent, or the price paid for the bare unimproved value of the land ; (2) Freetrade. This should be the programme of the workers of New Zealand. They will have to adopt it sooner or later, and the sooner tfhey do so the 1 better it -will be for ■ themselves, for in it and nothing else lies- the solution of tho great) labour problem. The outcry for -an increased population, in this country will also be met when tho workers secure the reform I am advocating, for capitalists and labourers alike will then be attracted to New Zealand from all parts of the_ Empire. This is obvious from the fact that the whole of the produce of labour would, under the new order of things, be divided between capital and labour, as ifi ought to be. — I am, etc., \ FREETRADER, j Wellington, 7th June. v \