COLONIAL PRODUCTS AND PROTECTION.

Evening Star, Issue 8279, 26 July 1890, Page 3 (Supplement)

COLONIAL PRODUCTS AND PROTECTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I cannot allow “ Shoddy Shoddy’s ” statements to go unchallened re the price of goods. I affirm that many things are much cheaper than they were. Blucher shoes, for instance, which were charged 12s 6d for when 1 first landed, can now be got for 8s fid ; English candles, which were Is per lb, are now selling at 9d ; drapery 1 never saw as cheap before. I saw iron shovels, or dustpans, marked up to-day for 4Jd each ; used to be 9d. China candlesticks, fid ; were Is. Night lamps, formerly 2s ; now Is. And many other things proportionately cheap—too cheap the tradesmen tell me. As for

what “ Shoddy Shoddy ” contemptuously terms my gingham, 1 can assure him it was locally made, and bo are my tweed and boots. But, eir, neither Frcetrade nor Protection will make us all prosperous unless we have better government in other matters than we have hitherto had.—l am, etc., Protectionist. Dunedin, July 23.

TO TBS BWTOB. Sib, The proverb that allows modesty to be a sign of worth would allow your correspondent “ Shoddy Shoddy ” to be a very owner of that attribute. One “Shoddy” would have well enough represented his mental quality, and he dubs himself with two. “Let the man alane,” said Bobbie Burns to a crowd that shouted “shame! to a man who presented another, by whom he hod just been rescued from drowning, with the sum of eighteenpenoe. “ Let the man alane, he kens his ain value better than you dae.” So, perhaps, “Shoddy ”is right after all; and yet it has just flashed upon me that it is not himself, bnt us poor Protectionists, that he the misplaced double shoddy to apply to. If so, we are so accustomed to that and worse, that, like the eels when being skinned, we don’t feel It. What wo would feel would be a little sound reasoning that told against us instead of sneers and assertions, and criticism like “ Shoddy Shoddy’s,” which finds its parallel in that of the midge on Sir Christopher’s masterpiece, ‘ St. Paul’s. Like said midge, “ Shoddy Shoddy ” would decide adversely on an eloborate systein by what is patent, and perhaps really objectionable, within the limits of his own little horizon. In the same way, with as much justice and common gumption, he would pronounce “ the best business fra Dunedin ’ to be unsound, because on the debit side he found several items, let _us say, aggregating LI,OOO. What to him would be the fact that on the credit side there was ten (or perhaps ten times ten) thousand ? You could not deny that they owed a thousand, whoever the merchants were ; but, like the obstinate and prejudiced people called Protectionists, you might deny that the business was therefore insolvent. The only point “ Shoddy Shoddy” thinks worth contending for (see concluding sentence of his letter) is whether goods are now dearer than formerly ; and with regard to this there need be no contest, at least with regard to imported goods. They are dearer. It needed no newspaper editor to tell him they would become dearer. The avowed object of Protection was to make them dearer, when its complete object of prohibiting them altogether could not be effected. If “Shoddy Shoddy ” is determined to purchase the shoddy or no shoddy imported, with the effect of increasing the list of our unemployed, decreasing the occupation of our houses, and deepening our debt, ho ought to pay for it.- —3 am, etc.,’ Anti-Shodut. Dunedin, July 25.