PROTECTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 20, 23 January 1872, Page 2

PROTECTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

We recently had an opportunity of listening to Mr. Saunders' remarks on the damaging results that protection was producing in America. The followiog expresses the sentiments of an American, statesman on the same subject : —

It will be my purpose also during the canvass to discuss the great questions of taxation, finance, revenue, and tariff reform, and the best manner of simplifying and economising in the collection of taxes and revenue ; and to relieve and equalise, as far as possiblp, the heavy burdens, aud to apportion them in some proportion, to the ability to bear them.

You all remember that Gen. "Wash-burn told the people of Racine, ia our joiut discussion there in 1868, that the people here were uever so prosperous a3 since the close of the war. Speaker Blaine has also indulged in the same strain quite recently. But it must be borne in mind that within the past few years Mr. B!&ine has become a very rich raaD, a millionaire, i£ is said ; and how can he sympathise with or know the true condition of the common people, or the burdens they now bear? We all know that while the fortunate few may have become suddenly rich and are above ail pecuniary troubles, the great mass of the people, professional meu, small merchants, traders, mechanics, farmers, and laborers never feel the burdeu of taxation, and the struggle for a respect-

able and honest livelihood more than now. To show HOW WE ARE TAXED. I read from a list which I have had no time to verify by actual computation, but which I believe to be correct. A gentleman previously engaged in commerce, who understands his subject, has taken the trouble to see what the duties are upon a few leading articles. Look at the

For the present I will conclude what I have to say in answer to Spfaktr Biaine on this subject, by reading to you the most eloquent and truthful account of our present condition, in the language of Sydney Smitb, written more than forty years ago. I once read this on the floor of the senate. It describes our condition now so perfectly, it seemed so like a prophecy, that senators sprang to their feet to enquire the name of the author. I commend it for its truth, and, as a specimen of writing of unequalled simplicity and force, I commend it to every young man. Let him read it again. Let him learn it by heart, and when General Washburn or Speaker Biaine shall tell you how rich you are, repeat it to them : —

" Taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon everything which it is pleasant to hear, feel, smell, or taste ; taxes upon, warmth, light, and locomotives ; taxes on every thing ou earth and the waters under the earth ; on everything that comes from abroad or is grown at borne; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man ; taxes on the sauce that pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health ; on the ermine that decorates the judge, and the rope that hangs the criminal ; on the poor man's salt, and on the rich man's spice ; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride; at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The schoolboy whips his taxed top ; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle ou a (axed road ; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine which has paid 7 per cent, into a spoon that has paid 15 per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid 22 per cent., makes his will on an £8 stamp, and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who has paid a license of £100 for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel ; his virtues are hatded down to posterity on taxed marble ; and he is then gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more." (Great applause.) Listen again to his prophetic warnings to us: — "In addition to all this, the habit of dealing with large suras will make the Government avaricious and profuse; and the system itself will infallibly generate the base vermin of spies and informers, and a still more pestilent race of political tools aud retainers of the meanest and . most odious description ; whilst the prodigious patronage which the collection of this splendid revenue will throw into the hinds of Government will invest it with so vast an influence, and hold out such means and temptations to corruption as all the virtue and public spirit even of Republicans will be unable to resist." (Great applause.) With very slight modification, it describes our condition, aud points out one of our greatest dangers.

In England, where experimental agriculture is carried to an extreme almost unknown with us, the invention of. methods ot irrigation has been very ingenious. At Stoke Park a tract of twenty acres is irrigated by artificial rain, the system being quite successful. The water was applied every night last summer in showers, excepting when natural rain made it unnecessary. The apparatus consists of pipes laid in the ground, supplied from an elevated reservoir into which water was pumped by machinery. The financial exhibit made by the results of the experi-

ment is said to be a good on?. The interest on the money invested in the necessary machinery, and the cost of operating it, aggregated 95 dollars per acre for the entire tract of twenty acres. Likewiss the iucome per acre aggregate 200 dollars, being made up of the proceeds of one crop of grass aud grazing in the autumn of 1870, and two crops of hay in 1871. The net profit was thus 151 dollars per acre. On land of the same tract aud same character, used for the same purpose, but where the irrigation was omitted, the nßt profit per acre was but 45 dollars — Americau paper.

We take the following sensible remarks from an Auckland contemporary : — One great source of want of prosperity in this community is, that too many boys are brought up to a town life, and too few to rural pursuits. One of the surest methods of attaching a boy to his father's farm is to let him have something upou it for his own. Give him a plot of ground to cultivate, allowing him the proceeds for his own use. Let him have his own steer3 to break, or his sheep to care for. The ownership of even a fruit tree, planted, pruned, and brought to bearing by his own liands, will inspire him with an iuterest that no mere reward of wages can give. In additiou to the cultivation of a farm life which such a course will cultivate, the practical knowledge gained by the boy will be of the highest value. Being interested he will be more observant, and will thoroughly learn whatever is neccessary for his success. Another and equally important advantage will be the accustorniug him early to feel responsibility. Many young met), though "well acquainted with all the mauual operations of the farm, fail utterly when intrusted with the management of an estate from want of experience in planning for themselves. It is much better that responsibilty should be gradually assumed than that a young man should be first thrown upou himself on attaining his majority.

We find the following in the Saturday Review, on a book of field sports in America : — lt is fair to own that Mr. Dashwood does tell one amusing story in the course of his book. We have hesitated to quote it, however, leet we should thereby deprive him of all chances of getting a reader. There" are people who would angle in a pond so long as they knew that there was oue fish in it. But we must consider our own readers before Mr. Dashwood's, and must make up in some degree for the dulneas of the extracts that we have already inflicted upon them. And now for Mr. Dash wood's story. He is describing the island of Newfoundland, nnd says : — " Many of the of the more remote bays have never left the neighborhood in which they were born ; the ignorance of some of these people is hardly to be credited. A short time pince, on the discovery of a mine on the east coast of the islaDd, some horses and cows were transported thither; ahorse happening to stray away was shot by a settler as an unknown wild animal. In the course of skinning the beast the man discovered its iron shoes; this appeared to him such an extraordinary occurrence that he attributed it to a supernatun.l agency — as ignorant people are liable to do things they do not understand — and departed quickly from the spot, leaving ihe horse where he had killed it. The people at this remote place, on first seeing a cow, exclaimed, ' Here comes an animal with powder horns growing on its head !'• They had used cow horns for that purpose all their lives without knowing their origin."

list. The poor man is taxed : Per cent. On his salt 108 On his pepper 140 On his rice 85 On his soap 70 On his starch 5 * On his candles 40 On the sheets of his bed 55 On the blankets that cover him ... 210 On the carpet ho buys 30 On his window curtains SO On his knives and forks 35 On his window glass 55 On his water pitcher 40 On the hat he wears 40 On his stockings 75 On a silk dress for his wife 60 On a dress of woollen 100 On a shawl 200 On a handkerchief 75 The farmer is taxed : Per cent. On his hoe and spade, each 41 On his horse- shoes 67 On his plough 45 On his chairs 100 On his harness 35 On a hand-saw 75 On a penknife 50 On ft dinner can 35 On an iron-hoop pail 60