PROTECTION.

Evening Star, Issue 7183, 11 April 1887, Page 3

PROTECTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— Sir Robert Stout never spoke more truly in his life than when telling the New Zealand Industrial Association that any attempt on the part of the Government to the Customs duties already in force would meet with a storm of opposition from members raising the cry of increased taxation ; and perfectly right they would be too. Let the working men see to it before it is too

late. Wharf laborers, draymen, cabmen, railway employes, carpenters, bricklayers, teachers,' clerks, shopmen, all ami sundry, should endeavor to prevent any increase of duties, as, despite what is told them by ambitious politicians and interested manufacturers, a higher tariff would unquestionably mean increased taxation. To hear Sir Robert talk, one would imagine that Protection was a new idea altogether. We are, however in a position to see what this wretched policy has done for other communities. We may instance Victoria. The working men there have for the past fifteen years been steadily leaving the country, and it may surprise the Protection League here to learn that quite as many people entered New South Wales during the past ten years by paying their passages from “protected ” Victoria as entered it under the policy of free immigration. The excess of revenue in Victoria, about which Protectionists are so fond of cackling, is wrung out of the pockets of the working classes, and they see through the little game, and leave for New South Wales. In a little work just published (1885) entitled “ Popular Fallacies regarding Trade and Foreign Duties," by E. S. PearceEdgecumbe, I find the following instructive extract; —“ The following table is interesting, as showing what protective duties have been doing for the Colony of Victoria during the past ten years (see ‘ Daily News,’ 16th August, 1881): — Population of Victoria, census of 1871 .. 731,000 Returns of excess of births over deaths fiom 1871 to 1881 140,000 Number of Immigrants registered as arriving to settle in the Colony from 1871 to 1881 .. B',ooo Total .. .. .. ~ 930,000 Number of actual population, census 1881 .. 855,000 The conclusion to be drawn from these figures is that between 1871 to 1881 no less than 75,000 Jpersons—more by 22,000 than the number of her immigrants during that period—found the fiscal system of Victoria so unfavorable to their wellbeing that they left the country and emigrated to places offering fewer impediments to prosperity,” And yet in the face of the above Sir Robert Stout and his Protectionist friends would have us believe that Protection will be of immense benefit to New Zealand. If in Victoria this policy has failed to teach the working men “ what to do with their boys ” (as the above figures conclusively prove), and has also failed to “ raise the rate of wages,” and also to “keep the money in the country,” what right have Protectionists in New Zealand to assume that a high tariff will have the contrary effect here ? Protectionists one and all, from Mr Neil down to Sir Julius Vogel and Sir Robert Stout, have yet to learn that “no taxes should be imposed which create a vested interest in their continuance ”; and that Protection does create a vested interest in the shape of manufacturers and their employees, no one will deny.—l am, etc., Australian. Dunedin, April 9.