The Star. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1685, 26 July 1887, Page 2

The Star. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1887.

SIR JULIUS VOGEL AT CHRIST-

CHURCH.

In the course of his speech at Christchurch Sir J. Vogel, speaking on what he euphemistically called the reinstatement of the Customs, said :—": — " It was not proposed, as had been stited, to tax agricultural implements. With very few exceptions, they had still been left free. Farming was an industry which gained largely by protection. Farmers must recollect tbat they benefit more by a home market than by a foreign one. He estimated that at least five and a half millions sterling of farm and agricultural produce, including meat, was consumed in the colony, and it was short-sighted to think more of tbe foreign than of the home market." We fear tbe farmers will by no means acquiesce in this view. They know their own business, probably, better than Sit J. Yogel can teach it them. And they can afford to smile at the idle talk about a home market for their produce being of more benefit to them than a foreign market. They have long recognised the fact that so soon as the New Zealand market for wool, wheat, mutton, butter, and cheese was glutted, (as it has long been with those products) the price they would obtain in New Zealand depended solely upon the net value of their produce in the outside markets of the world Thus the price of tallow in New Zealand depends solely on its London value, despite a considerable manufacture of soap and candles in New Zealand. In like manner, prices of wheat, wool, and mutton are almost without exception ruled by the prices obtainable for those goods elsewhere. Thus the farmers in this district were last summer asked to decide whether taking all the circumstances iuto consideration they would prefer to ship their mutton to London direct or to take their chance of the prices obtainable in Waitara, in Auckland, on the West Coast South Island, or in Wellington Ha 3 the outlook for the Lor, don market been only slightly better than it was at the time, large numbers of fat sheep would be now being sent to London direct from this district. It seems to us a fallacy to talk of a Home market for New Zealand goods so long as such large sums have yearly to be paid in London by New Zealand as interest on her loans. It is an admitted fact among statisticians that it is never money which is sent where-

with to pay either loans to borrowers or interest on loans to lenders on a large scale. The English bondholder really accepts a paper promise to pay, and gives a paper order for the amount of his debenture. The borrowing New Zealander does no|t want gold, but machinery, bridge material, railway iron, locomotives, railway rolling stock, and the like. This is what actually passes in&tead of. coin of the realm ; though some additional specie must also be sent in order to pay wages to navvies and workmen, to open and provide for banks in new towns, and to keep the supply of current coin in ever-growiug communities up to the standard required for modern every-day life. It seems childish to talk of the colony as though she could consume all her produce, and almost in* the same breath to "boast, as. f the present Ministry doea boast, of having settled 2000 families on the land

during \tfie past year. This is a point urge d by us more than once ere now, but,* when the Colonial Treasurer proceeds to iufoTm farmers as to what market is most to their benefit and to lecture them for their shortsightedness, it seems but reasonable to suggest that perhaps they might be able to" see what sort of policy is to their own interests quite as clearly as he can show them. It will take a lot of persuasion to convince a grazier who sees the local price of hides, wool, and tallow vary from week to week in strict accordance with the rise and fall of tbe London markets, and quite irrespective of the New Zealand demands-it will, we say, take a lot of platform eloquence to persuade the struggling farmer that "it is shortsighted to think more of the foreign than of the borne market." It is generally wise to practise what one preaches if one wishes for a following, but Sir J. Vogel, in his Financial Statement, frequently referred to the condition of outside markets for New Zealand products, but never, so far as we know, based a single calculation in respect to revenue on tbe prices ruling in the comparatively unimportant " home markets of New Zealand," from whicb it would appear that he was as shortsighted as the farmers, whom he blames for following the example set them by the Colonial Treasurer.