THE Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1859.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1997, 29 September 1869, Page 2

THE Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1859.

While the Government of New Zealand has been mainly engrossed by schemes for centralisation and carrying on the Maori war, the people of Victoria have been straining every nerve to encourage manufactures and develope commerce. That their fiscal efforts have been in a wrong direction does not

alter the fact that their attention has been turned to those ends. The tariff of Victoria has all the vices and anomalies of protective legislation : it taxes one part of the community for the benefit of another, and gives to some facilities denied to the rest. Thus it happened, before the system of class taxation was adopted, a trade in the manufacture of slop clothing had grown up, in which large capital was invested, and which employed a great number of hands. These would have been injured had there been a heavy duty imposed upon the importation of woollen cloths, and the incipient secondary manufacture would have been driven away. It will be observed the growth of this manufacture was a healthy one. It had its rise principally in a large demand for ready-made goods, which was met with very inferior articles at high prices from abroad; and it was found that by the application of machinery, where possible, and by availing themselves of other industrial aids, notwithstanding the higher cost of labor, a better article could be made at a little advance in price, the market for that class of goods could be secured, and the inferior productions driven from consumption. These advantages were so manifest, that not even Mr M'Culloch nor Mr Francis could gainsay them, and so the protective tariff of Victoria taxes the people's bread for the sake of the farmers, and leaves the manufacturers of woollen cloth to compete with the untaxed cloths of Europe, for the sake of the makers-up of woollen and other clothing. We mention this principally to show that the influence of the Melbourne capitalists is paramount with every Government, who must succumb to their dicta whenever any regulations are in contemplation likely to affect their interests. A still more striking illustration of this fact is given, in the endeavor to make Melbourne the emporium of the Australasias. The importance of an extended market is too apparent to need a word in commendation of it. VV hereever capital is invested, if not employed to its utmost capability, the greatest possible advantage is not derived from its use; and as Victoria can manufacture more than her population consumes, customers must be found. The peculiar mode of colonisation of New Zealand renders the supply of its markets a fine field for commercial enterprise. Instead of colonising from one or two centres, as in South Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales, this Colony has a number of small settlements, dotted here and there over the whole extent of its enormous coast line. The consequence is that population and consequently capital are diftused, and a corresponding difficulty is experienced in establishing those industries that are dependent upon organisation and co-operation. These small settlements are therefore chiefly dependent upon foreign supplies for manufactured articles, as the attention of the settlers is usually directed to more primitive employments than weaving, or giving fashionable form at a cheap cost, to the products of the loom. These nonmanufacturing populations, too small and too scattered to import their own supplies direct from Great Britain, look for them to the large mercantile firms of Victoria and New Zealand, and it is here that our merchants have to compete, at manifest disadvantage, whenever any impediment is thrown in the way of their serving their customers on the best possible terms. So wide awake to the profit of a New Zealand trade are both the merchants and Customs authorities of Victoria, that for its encouragement every facility is given by allowing original packages to be broken in bond under certain restrictions, that parcels may he exported suitable in value to the small demand of the small settlements, without payment of the duty that would bo chargeable and not returnable were it first necessary to clear the goods. By this means capital is economised, and the merchants of Melbourne are placed in a better position than those of New Zealand to supply New Zealand’s smaller tradesmen so long as the Customs Regulations of the Colony are made impediments instead of aids to distribution of imports. There is no doubt that a limit to the value of goods cleared is necessary, that a peddling trade should not grow up amongst us. In all mercantile communities, division of labor is not only convenient but profitable. It has never been found to the advantage of either that retailers should assume the functions of wholesale dealers, or vice- versa. But when it becomes necessary to clear more than an original package, in order to execute an order for one, the regulation not only hampers, but tends to curtail trade. It needs no argument to shew, that all that is paid in duty on more than that package, is so much capital advanced and tinprofitable, until the extra quantity is disposed of, and since that may not be effected for an indefinite time, the merchant must either add to the price of

the goods actually sold, and thus throw the trade into the hands of his Melbourne or Sydney opponents, or by meeting them in price, submit to a sacrifice of profit that can ill be spared where competition is so severe. These truths seem to us so common-place and obvious, that it is scarcely comprehensible they should have escaped the keen vision of the Commissioner of Customs. No advantage, as far as we can see, can result from restricting the measurement to be cleared at the Customs to just a few feet over the usual size of original packages. The revenue is in no danger by restricting the quantity to original packages, and the mistake made surely requires only to be pointed out to insure a ready remedy.