A FREETRADER SET BIGHT.

Evening Star, Issue 7237, 13 June 1887, Page 1

A FREETRADER SET BIGHT.

Tp IBS EDZTOB. Sib, —In your issue of this evening appears a letter headed " A Protectionist Condracuoted,” in which the writer, referring to. certain statements made by me at the Momington meeting, charges me with being myself deceived, and also with decieving others. With a guileless simplicity almost amounting to verdancy, lie describes his peregrinations from grocer to merchant, thence to jam manufacturer, and lastly to a retail house in . the boot trade in quest of -the coveted information, and finally, in the innocence of his heart, he demands that I should retract publicly or produce authorities. > , There is a via media . I will explain what I thought sufficiently clear. I was reasoning to show that the arguments of Freetraders in this Colony were almost invariably non seqwten; and that their conclusions were hot contained in their premises. I illustrated this by pointing out that the imposition of 25 per cent, on bnpoited boots and shoes did not logically involve a similar increase in the cost of the article, the price of which is.regulated by local competition. In further proof of this I stated that in the various revisions of the .Tariff which had taken place, several articles on which an increased duty had been fallen 10, 12J, and in some cases as high as 25 per cent., which was quite a natural result from the greater competition amongst, and improved processes adopted by, colonial manufacturers, consequent on their increased output. At. the meeting'Mr J. G. Moody asked me to mention articles which had been reduced in price under an increased Tariff, and I jams, candles, and boots and* shoes. ' • ~ Your , correspondent in his latter iwwyymfa. me as stating that these, reductions took place “ since thenew Tariff Bill (now repealedjhad ten introduced.” I am .at a losstoimcterstatwl how any person could iavebeea so absurd as-to imagine .such results could accrue under a proposed Tariff, which, at the time I spoke, had no chance of becoming lawl ml under which duties were continently for only a few days. So much for'your correspondent’s blunder. I submit that my argument (hat “increased duties do not involve increased burdens ” istoot

only unanswered but unanswerable. Are yon aware, sir, that when the old 10 per cent duties were in force, boots were ticketed as cheap at 22s 6d in the centre of Dunedin, which can now be obtained at from 12s 6d to 16s 6d; that jam (Peacock’s) which was sold a few years ago at 8d per lb (strawberry 9d) can now be procured for fid and 7d; that sterine candles, which were formerly 7d and 8d per lb, are now ticketed all over Dunedin at 4d per lb.—l am, etc., W. J. New all, Dunedin, June 11.