FREE TRADE.

New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, Volume IV, Issue 329, 2 March 1844, Page 2

FREE TRADE.

We insert in to-day's paper a letter signed Veritas, on the subject of Free Trade in New Zealand. We fully concur in our correspondents views, and we are exceedingly glad to find that our contemporaries at Auckland are all agreed as to the propriety of every body abstaining from robbing every body. It is also fortunate that the Governor entertains the views adopted by the most enlightened on this important subject. His Excellency has declared that he desires to see trade as free as air ; but hj has a custom's system, and before be abandons it he prudently feels that he must be secure in obtaining, at least, an equal revenue from .some other source or sources. It becomes, therefore, the duty of the press to canvass the best mode of supplying the Government with ways and means, the least productive of evil to the community. The strongest argument in favour of our correspondents views is, that Government will not be able to raise customs' revenue from residents on the coast. We hear that at the present moment seven vessels are on the coast, supplying the demand for articles subject to duties. No taxes will, therefor*, be thence derived. The habit of looking to the smuggler must be growing a-pace, and it w.ill prove befoie long that these settlements are also supplied by the same parties. The customs must be abandoned before long because they cannot be maintained. In the meantime, however, it is doubly severe upon the trader resident in a settlement, who will not infringe the law. He is called upon to pay for the support of the Govornment, and at the same time from the advantage the smuggler has over him, in the absence of a sufficient coast guard, is debarred from obtaining an income by the conduct of a trade which legitimately belongs to him. We would urge the propriety, if the duty on goods likely to be smuggled cannot be dispensed with where it can be collected, of at least forthwith allowing, under a suitable arrangement, all the whaling stations to be supplied from these settlements, with goods in bond. By this plan the fair trader would be afforded the advantage over the smuggler derived from living in the islands, and knowing the daily wants of the coast, and as. the smuggler would be aware that the advantage was now against him, he would resort to an avowed port and transact his business in a. legitimate way. We urge that if the Government can T not yet .abandon the customs system,, it is equally its interest, as it is .the interest of these settlements, that the modification we now, and haye 1 before repeatedly urged, should be given effect by legislation.