Hawke's Bay Herald FRIDAY. JANUARY 14, 1870.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 14, Issue 1118, 14 January 1870, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald FRIDAY. JANUARY 14, 1870.

The week or two of five weather that have succeeded the heavy rains of a fortnight since, have given our farmers j au opportunity of getting in their crops. | These, so far as we have been able to ! ascertain, are, in spite of caterpillars, and other destructive agencies, unusually abundant this year. If prices cau be obtained for grain such as were obtained last year, agriculture will have received a really important stimulus. We believe, however, that owing to the very large crops grown iv other parts of the world, this cau hardly be anticipated. If, as is to be feared, our producers fiud themselves undersold in the markets, by those of California or South ' America, more favourably circum- ! stanced, the result will be that the old prejudice agaiust agricultural farming will be confirmed, and that less wheat will be put into the ground this year than last. This unfortunate state of things might have beeu to some extent averted, had the proposal, brought forward last session, to put a moderate protective duty on cereals and flour, been successful. It was, as our readers will doubtless remember, negatived by a small majority, owing either to the political partizanship or the doctrinaire bigotry of Mr. Stafford aud his following. To all the reasons urged in favour of the imposition of the duty, they could answer nothing but that they were on principle Free Traders ; that they considered the smallest violatiou of free trade principles as heiuous a siu as the greatest, au argument that might, perhaps, hold good iv Theology, but could scarcely, one would think, hold good in Political Economy ; that the violation of these principles on a small scale would infallibly lead to their violation on, a large one — the old teetotal argument, that taking a glass of wine will cause one iv time to become an inveterate drunkard. It was in vain to point out to them that principles which are applicable to au old populous country are not applicable to a young and thinly-peopled one ; that British industries themselves had grown up under centuries of protection ; that iv an old country free trade might answer, as, if producers were driven put of one manufacture by the increased competition of foreign countries, they could transfer their capital to another, while in a young country such a transfer was attended with almost insuperable difficulties ; that without protective duties iv a young country there was no means of ascertaining its suitability for the naturalization of foreign industries. That all this is admitted by the greatest thinkers and most uncompromising advocates of free trade, for though Mr. Stafford brought forward a letter from Mr. John Stuart Mill, iv which he affected to think that that high authority had retracted his opinion "in favor of moderate protection iv a young country, it was evident to any one who perused the letter that the retractation is of a very modified description. Its tenor is — " If you were wise and firm enough of purpose to know where to stop iv your protecting, then I should say protect, but as the probability is that you are not, I would advise you to abstain from it altogether." It was shown that in some few instances where protection had been resorted to, the results had beeu everything that could be desired ; for instance, that the tax put upon imported beer has led to the development of au enormous local trade — that the nuriiber of breweries in New Zealand was now not less thau eighty. It was explained how in the end this tax ou imported corn would be favorable to consumers, by giviug a start to agriculture, aud causing creased competition, which would Result in flour being; produced cheaper at home thau it could be imported from abroad, and very ; naturally so, for it will be found by any one who examines the returns that, as thiugs are at present, we re-impprt nearly 100,000 bushels of wheat a year which we had previously exported. The double freight is a tax ou the colony which would more than balance the protective duty. It was shown that it would help, to solve our great problem — that of obtaining population ; by making farming profitable, it would attract farmers. One member, who virtually;

admitted that thisb^at! |ipe fc^se^ s&i'<p" that assisting imnHignatiote would serve/ this purpose as efiectuallyjaild; he proposed that this shquld be substituted for!i£ Why substituted for it ? Surely tlie two causes together will be more powerful: than either alone. It was shown that, as it is the farmers whTo | are the heaviest contributors to the tolls, it is through them chiefly that the roads, are kept in order, and that, consequently) whatever we do to encourage the Consumption of our own flour is so much done towards constructing aud repairing our own loads, while every ton of flour imported is so much paid towards- maintaining the roads df foreign countries. The absurdity of. the statement that the pro*' posed impost would have an injurious effect on the mining interest wag made manifest when it, was proved that if.it had been in -force last year, it would not have added one shilling a head to the taxation of each mah| woman, and child in this colony. It .\ was pointed out that the Australian colonies taxed all grain that we exported to them; that America would not take a single pound of our wool free of duty ; that we ought reciprocally to tax the grain we import from those countries. This argument has received some confirmation from the turn that the late agitation in Lancashire has taken. It has been maintained, it seems tons justly, that Great Britain should impose cer^ tain protective duties, were it merely with the view of taKing them off again, whenever some neighbouring nation consents to take off an equivalent amount of duty from some of our exports. But all argument was vain ; whether it was from party feeling, that bane of New Zealand politics, though the measure was not strictly speaking a govern-, ment one ; or whether it was from a childish terror of some Mumbo Jumbo, tlje creature of their own imaginations, whjch they called Protection, the opposition were not to be moved. . Let us hope that if the Government should see , fit next year to bring up the subject again in a scheme for re-adjusting the tariff, it will at least meet with an honester and more rational attempt at comprehension than this measure has met with.