THE PREMIER AND THE TARIFF CONFERENCE.

Evening Star, Issue 7485, 2 April 1888, Page 1

THE PREMIER AND THE TARIFF CONFERENCE.

To use an apposite if somewhat vulgar expression, the deputation from the Protection Conference, who intei*viewed the Premier on Wednesday, did not " get much change " out of the honorable gentleman. In fact he somewhat put them in a holf by questions awkward to reply to satisfactorily. What could have been better, for instance, than the asking with an air of simplicity, as if for information, whether he understood " the deputa- " tion to say that they had only dealt " with the question (of the Tariff) as it " referred to local industries, irrespec- " live of everything else ?" The very strongest argument against Protection is here put in an interrogatory form, and the gross selfishness of the immediate promoters exposed. According i to them, every other interest is to give way to the encouraging certain local industries—so unfitted to the circumstances of the colony that they cannot stand alone—by such high duties on imports as may bring the articles up to a price at which there may be a handsome profit on the production. In the proposals approved by the Conference the community at large and individual consumers are not considered at all. Everything is regarded from the producer's point of view, and the fact is ignored that under such a tariff as is urged to be adopted the producers themselves (outside of the few capitalist manufacturers) must necessarily be mulcted to a greater extent, in their character as consumers, than they can possibly profit by the enhanced price of what they severally or respectively produce—or rather, by their labor, assist in producing. The Premier clearly here had the Conference, through their deputation, on the hip ! Then again Sir Harry Atkinson made the " galled jades wince" on another very sore place by referring to the notorious system, which prevails in industries which are loud in demanding Protection, of employing mere children to the exclusion, of the skilled workman about whom there is so much pretence of anxiety that they should be secured remunerative employment. The objects of the manufacturers are cheap production and high prices, and to this end laborsaving machinery of every description is used ; whilst women and children are employed in preference to men. Is any one credulous enough to think that this would be altered under Protection, or that a larger demand, if such there should be, would induce one penny of unnecessary expenditure on the production 1 The idea is of course commercially absurd, and working men must be deluded indeed if they entertain it for a moment. The manufacturers who are at the bottom of the Protection movement care not one straw for anything but the profits of their business. These, they know, must be enhanced, at least for a time, by a high or prohibitive tariff. Catch them employing men when they can get boys at a starvation wage to do the work.

The suggestions for amendments in the Tariff submitted to the Premier by the deputation were certainly enough to make that hon. gentleman open his eyes, and he must, we conceive, have had some difficulty in preserving a suitably grave demeanor. Conceive an intelligent person of large experience like Sir Harry Atkinson having to listen to an expression of belief that the changes proposed, including the imposition of a duty of 5s per ton on coal, "would stimu- " late erery existing industry, give "a larger wage-earning power, and. "be the means of establishing new " industries likely to prove of great " economic importance." We should like to know, for instance, how the pastoral, agricultural, and gold-mining industries, which are all important as producing our staple exports, are to be stimulated by a tariff under which machinery and ironwork of all kinds, fencing, wearing apparel—not to speak of fuel for steam power—would be appreciably advanced in cost 1 What is to compensate these most important industries for being thus heavily weighted? Will there be a better market for wool, cereals, and dairy produce 1 ? Will the banks give a higher price for gold 1 Now, as to the "larger wage-earning power," we confess not to be able exactly to grasp the meaning of the deputation. If a greater demand for labor is what is intended, the expression assumes the general from the particular, which is very bad logic. The increased demand can only be in certain protected industries, and the labor practically must be withdrawn from more legitimate employment —speaking from an economic point of view. As to " the establishment of new industries," the Conference would seem to have been trusting very much to the chapter of accidents; as, except in the matter of whisky manufacture, no specific industries are referred to. There are very grave objections, other than those which might be maintained on Freetrade principles, against the reinstatement of differential duties in favor of spirits distilled in the colony. The experiment has been tried and proved a distinct failure in every way —no one profited but the distiller and the liquor sellers, wholesale and retail, whilst the revenue suffered appreciably. In respect to other industries, it is not desirable that any should be established by adventitious aid at the public expense. Their establishment on such terms, in truth, cannot but entail future political and social trouble on the colony.

In thanking the Conference for their report, which is certainly useful so far as demonstrating to what lengths the New Zealand Protectionists are prepared to go, the Premier emulated the ancient oracles in his enigmatical declarations as to the policy of the Cabinet. A tariff would be proposed, he said, which he hoped would meet with satisfaction; but, he added, no reasonably possible tariff would be at all likely to be approved by either " rabid « Protectionists or rabid Freetraders." It will bo of very anxious interest to see how the honorable gentleman proposes to get out of the difficulty in which, it must be conceded, he is involved. The desirability of encouraging local industries proper to the general circumstances of the colony must be admitted; and we may hope that the Government are not prepaid to go a step beyond this, and that they will be firm to the principle of securing the greatest good to the greatest number, which is entirely opposed to taxing the many for the benefit of the few.