INTERLONIAL FREE TRADE.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 15, Issue 1295, 9 June 1893, Page 2

INTERLONIAL FREE TRADE.

(From the ' New Zealand Farmer ' of June 1,) As we have pointed out in previous articles on this subject, New Zealand, even from the protectionist standpoint, has everything to gain and almost nothing to lose by intercolonial free-trade. There are but few productions in which Australia could compete with our own producers in our own markets, and by accepting freely all she can supply us with more cheaply than we can produce it for ourselves, we are enabling her to buy more largely of those New Zealand products in which our climate and soil render it certain we shall always be able to take the lead. Take the case of the Victorian duty on New Zealand oats, which was intended to benefit the Victorian 'farmers ; what does Mr Ward tell us? Why, that in Melbourne, when he was there the other day, Victoriangrown oats were selling at a price lower than New Zealand oata could be bought at f.o.b. at the Bluff. This price was Is Sd per bushel delivered in Melbourne. This is, of course, the natural result of the recent unusually favourable seasons for cropping operations in Victoria, combined with the artificial incentive to over-production caused by the shutting out of New Zealand competition by the protective duty. As soon as there was thus created a surplus of oats over and above the local demand, tbe price fell to something approximating the value for export. Our farmers have long known and accepted the fact that it ia this value alone which they have to depend on for their profits in grain-growing. Taking one year with anothar, this foreign market value has enabled us to produce graia in certain districts of the colony at a profit sufiic:mt, at all event?, to jnduce the continuance of such props.

Our local markets are ruled entirely by , European quotations, but our natural advantages of soil and climate are Buch that we can stand such a position j but neither "Victoria nor any other Australian colony could continue to produce grain under these conditions. To convince us of this we have only to compare the average yield per acre of wheat and oats in Victoria last season, the best harvest known there for six years, with the meaa average returns per acre in this colony for a period of 17 years, viz. : Wheat. Oats. Victoria ll'l2bus. 25*65bu8. New Zealand ... 25'92bus. 31-82oue. For the^five preceding yeara in Victoria, f he highest average return of oats ' per acre was 23.87 bushels, and in the season of 1888-1889 it was only 14.20 bushels, and wheat 7.10 bushels per acre. In a season such as the latter scarcely any duty could keep out New Zealand wheat and oats, because Victorian growers would not supply the local requirements of consumers, who would not long submit to famine prices with New Zealand supplies so close at hand.