IMMIGRATION VERSUS UNPROTECTED INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 2347, 3 August 1871, Page 3

IMMIGRATION VERSUS UNPROTECTED INDUSTRY.

To the Editor of tho llekald. Si.t, —If tho man who makes boots is entitled to be protected ago-nst foreign competition, the working mc i, v.->o i* t.xcd to protect him, should also be p; itected againsL competilion in tho commodity which helms to sell, namely, .'s labor ; but the contrary is the case, for competition in the liutcr article is sought, not to be prevented, as with manufacture?, but actually created by free immigration, by importation of that which was, perhaps, abundant before, as if his were an exceptional branch of industry, because ho does not employ capital in his vocation, but only his bodily energies; and that therefore to him that hath should bo given, while to him that hath not should be taken 'away, even that which he has a right to have in common with any other useful member of tho community. It would seem that if any sort of industry deserved protection, it was certainly that of hand labor, for with competition tho manufacturer has only a profit at sUke, while tho laborer has his bare cxistonce. To tho one, it may mean diminution of gain, to tho other, deprivation of food and shelter.

There is an apparent inconsistency in a pro tcctivo policy which excludes competition from one branch of industry, and absolutely creates it in another. Tliero is not oren tbo fairness of free trade about it, for the article ia not left to the natural laws of supply and demand, but actually imported at the cost of the taxpayers, the earnings of many of whom will be diminished thereby. Experience has shewn that where a country offered sufficient attraction! there was no lack of voluntary immigration, but the forcing of immigration without having tho attractions, seems like putting tho cart before tho horse.

The labour question is rather a plebeian branch of politics, but it has its precedents, in the Magna Charts, in the ten hours bill, and a few other enactments recognising the hand-laborer as an integral membor of tho State.—l aw,ifec., East Coast.