FREE TRADE V. PROTECTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7786, 4 November 1886, Page 3

FREE TRADE V. PROTECTION.

TO THK EDITOR. Slß,—l am very muoh surprised to see that Mr. Fraaer persists iu associating Mr. Gladstone's name with the statement, which eren Mr. Fraaer himself qualifies as "extraordlnary," that "free trade notions have pauperised the masses in Britain, until human life in the majority of oases is a struggle for existence." A " Working Man" denied that Mr. Gladstone made that statement. Thereupon Mr. Fraser, instead of giving chapter and verse, coolly comes and says that he " firmly believes" that Mr. Gladstone did make such a statement. That means, of course, that there is a vague idea in Mr. Fraser'a bead that Mr. Gladstone used some euoh words; so, without more inquiry, he puts Mr. Gladstone down in his proclamation aa an upholder of protection. Now, I in my turn, flatly deny that Mr. Gladstone used the words attributed to him, and I defy Mr. F. to prove that he did. The onus of proof lies ou him. Meantime I shall write Mr. Gladstone, submitting the statements to him. The whole thing is ludicrous, and Mr. Fraser is gratuitously assuming a vast amount of ignorance in those he is addressing when he asks them to believe that one of the foremost apostles of free trade, the man who has done more than any other to embody its principles in legislative enactments, that a man like Mr. Gladstone could have made any euoh outrageous statement during the last forty years of his public life. Aβ a late hon. secretary of a Political Association at home., I am pretty well accustomed to the wild assertions of the Tories, but Mr. Fraser beats them hollow! Now when matters of fact are treated in this loose style, judge of how the most questionable theories are handled. It is true Mr. Fraser produces an authority, before whiou I quail, and even you, Mr. Editor, will be awe-struck : it ia the Marlborough Times and Wilts—the rest of the title is too loog to be given in full. Despite the enormous authority of the M. T. and W M &,c, &0,, I will maintain that nothing more detrimental to the interetts of working men could possibly happen than an aggravation of the present system of protection in New Zealand. The question ie very simple: Whether is it to the interest of working men that they should buy what they want where it is cheapest, or that interested manufacturers be permitted to shut out the oheap articles in order to sell their own at a dear prioe, and to pooket the difference? Behind, there is another and a larger question, however : Whether is it to the interest of Auckland, designed by nature herself for one of the world's great seaports, that exchanges should be free, and shipping come and go unhindered, or that people called protectionists be permitted to levy tolls thereon, in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the community to which they belong?—lam, Ac, Tomahawk. Auckland, November 3, 1886.