The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1895. COMMERCE OR POLITICS?

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10596, 4 March 1895, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY , MARCH 4, 1895. COMMERCE OR POLITICS?

We have on more than one occasion during the last four years thought it right to protest against the practice of turning Chambers of Commerce into Conservative political associations. Of course, members of these Chambers can do as they please in this matter. They can, if they choose, allow their own utterances, or those of their office-bearers, to be tinged and coloured with any kind of class or party feeling. If, however, this becomes habitual, the reports and addresses of the Chambers will lose proportionately in value and public estimation. As long as they are recognised to he, not the temperately worded and sincerely offered opinions of experienced business men on current topics connected with trade and commerce, but rather the utterances of partisans, prepared to score a point, fairly or unfairly, against a Government or a party they may dislike, so long will tho public in general regard them with a good deal of natural suspicion. The,

Chairman of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce went out of his way the other day to make political capital against the Liberal Party. We cannot compliment this gentleman either upon what he did or upon the way in which he did it. Nothing could have excused the line he took except the most powerful reasoning and convincing argument. Only by completely proving his case against Liberal legislation could he have justified his attack upon it. But so far from proving his case, he did not ev'dn attempt to do so: This is the published summary of what Mr M’Leilan had to say at the meeting of the Wellington Chamber : As to the depression, he was afraid there was no indication of any improvement during the approaching winter. There was no use blinking the fact that the dulness referred to was due in a great measure to the want of confidence that existed in the colony, to the interference with traders by recent legislation, and to a determination on the part of those who had the misfortune to be possessed of land to restrict their expenditure on improvements, thereby throwing .a large number of unemployed upon the colony. It was, however, fair to say that low prices of produce had compelled producers, like others in the community, to economise, but generally there was a feeling that the bulk of legislation passed during the past few years had been inimical to the general interests of the colony, its workers and producers.

Now, a president of a Chamber of Commerce who commits himself to tho assertion that trade is being interfered with by legislation to such an extent as to depress the colony ought, at least, to have the grace to specify instances of such baneful interference. But the address delivered by Mr M’Lellan may be searched in vain for any such explanation. On the contrary, his opening sentences cut the ground from under his feet. This is what he says;—“ So fab as I can learn from inquiry, never before has a president of the Chamber been compelled to review a year during which the prices of our exported produce have been so abnormally low, and quite out of proportion with the cost of production.” Most people, we fancy, will see here a full and complete explanation of any depression which may at the present time be affecting New Zealand. Indeed, many will be inclined to think that, so far from there being any reason to hunt for local political causes for the depression, the only wonder is that with trade all over the world in the state in which it is, commerce and industry in New Zealand are not much more depressed than they are. If Mr M’Lellan could give himself a holiday and spend it in travelling through the producing and manufacturing countries of the world,, he would find every one of them not only as much affected as New Zea-” land by low prices, but in nearly every case suffering to a much greater degree. He would find English unemployed, American farmers, German peasants and Australian growers of wheat and wool crying out upon the bad times.

In passing, we may draw attention to the curious admission of the President of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce with regard to the attitude of the land-owners of the colony towards the workers. He dwells upon their rigid determination to restrict expenditure on their estates. He very fairly points out that this is 1 partly at any rate dub to the shrinkage of the prices they get for their produce. But his language seems to us distinctly to intimate that in his opinion their refusal to employ labour springs to some extent from a determination to punish the working classes for the political and social reforms carried by the Liberal Party. Mr M’Lellan would not, of course, put it quite in these words ; he would probably say that the land-owners are buttoning up their pockets, in part, at least, through resentment at the interfering legislation of the Government. We have, of course, no objection to the large land-owners expressing any political resentment they may feel against the Government, provided they do so in fair ways. But to revenge themselves on the Government “ by taking it out of ” certain members of the working classes with whom they may come into contact seems to ns a method of squaring accounts as crooked as it is petty-minded. We were severely taken to task last winter when we suggested that some such feeling as this was actuating certain land-owners and employers in this colony. We would draw the attention of our critics to the language employed by the President of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. It appears to us that this gentleman has unwittingly admitted much of our contention.