CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 2748, 15 June 1894, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

PROTECTION.

, To the Editor of- the Star. Sib,— Mr George F. Baker states. that the Scientific 'American bad proved by statistics that ," Protection baa actually cheapened production," and in further proof shows that Our farmers use American ebovele. puttbair wheat in with American drills, reap with American reapers, grind their flour at a milt supplied with American machinery, and fall their timber with American axes. This is so, and the reason is plain. Our farmers are allowed to import all the above into this colony free of duty. To put a stop to all this we^ want protection— more protection. Why should not the tariff be revised and the above American goods so increased in price to the farmers by protection that our farmers could not import them from America, bub be compelled to. employ 11 our sons " — our New Zealand sons— to manufacture them in our colony ? Why, sir, we should have engineers, machinists^ millwrights, and every kind of factory afj work in every village ; they would beaße to be villages-they would become towns, con* neoted by railways., in every direction.! Tbe unemployed would be all employed j even if tbe farmers had to pay two^ or three times the price of an American, article ; they would be encouraging local production, keeping the money in the, country, keeping up wages," and 'aotually cheapening production; for the faxmprs; would require to produce two -or three times as much wheat, wool, or meat,;or butter to pay for the protected home-made machinery. I always said '" our George '■ knew as muoh as the Scientific American, perhapß more. Bravo, George! Give us protection, protection rings, and unions; protection that will give us higher wages and oheapen production. — I am, &c, . . Working Man.