THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1901.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11781, 10 October 1901, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1901.

The long-delayed Federal Tariff has at last been announced. The lesson for New Zealand is that the Barton Administration intends to pre-empt the Australian market for Australian producers, as far as that is possible, and that we must vigorously proceed with the opening up of wider trade areas if several important industries are not to be disadaffected. For although the inter-State trade is not as prominent in New Zealand statistics as it is in those of the other leading Australian States, it is nevertheless considerable. In 1893, we exported to all countries nearly ten and alialf million pounds' worth. Eight and a-quarter millions went to the United Kingdom. Of the balance nearly a million and a-half went to Australia and Tasmania; while over six hundred thousand pounds' worth went to the United States ; leaving a very scanty margin for all other customers. But the peculiarity of the Australian trade has been its great irregularity, caused by the irregular seasons to which the great island-continent i& so subject and from which our colony is, happily, comparatively free. This most noticeably affects the grain trade, but it also affects more or less the sale of all agricultural products. It has been very aptly pointed out that when Australia is drought-stricken and fails to produce sufficient to satisfy her requirements she must buy from us, no matter what duty she imposes. We may also take it for granted that even in ordinary seasons, our climatic advantages will enable a very considerable amount of trade to be done in the face of the new tariff. But it is probable that the ultimate effect of such a tariff as that announced may be to artificially inflate prices inside the protected zone and thus to increase —at the expense of the Australian consumerthe internal production of various articles which New Zealand now assists in supplying. It

|is not the immediate effect of the | tariff which is so much to be feared, ; excepting in one or two items which require special attention. What we may generally look for is a restrictive tendency, gradually and steadily manifesting itself in our annual trade returns. This can be completely counteracted by sedulously enlarging our markets. There is South Africa to the westward, likely to be a valuable customer for some time, if not permanently. There is. the United States to the north-east, where eighty millions of Englishspeaking people, living at a high standard of comfort, are ready to reciprocate with us and provide us a magnificent market, if we are 'wise enough to cultivate friendly relations. And there is the "West Coast of South America, literally unexploited, which is well worthy the attention of our Government. There is therefore no occasion whatever to take alarm at the Federal Tariff, even though it contains a very broad hint from our Australian fellow citizens that if Ave Ariose to stay outside their Commonwealth pale we can look for no commercial favour at their hands. We need not quarrel with them for that, even though some of our Southern friends seem inclined to quarrel with all things American because of the incidental working of the historic American navigation laws. Their tariff only teaches us—what we all really knew beforethat within the broad and generous sympathies which bind kindred peoples together practical business methods have ample and unimpeded range. The Australians will stand shouldei to shoulder with us in defence of our common interests and against any and every foreign assailant, even as in the inevitable future American and Briton and Colonial will stand together to defend for each other the common liberties and common principles of Anglo-Saxondom. But in the meantime the Australians do not want to buy our butter and cheese if the Commonwealth can supply itself. They do not want to patronise Few Zealand fisheries, if they can do without it, or to have the kauri logs they need sawn by New Zealand mills. They will seek for health by drinking bottled Helidon rather than bottled Puriri. Our hens must not lay eggs for them or our oysters fatten for them or our pigs die for themif they can avoid it. Our farmers may help them through the drought years, but their own farmers shall have preference always. In short, we may be their hewers of wood and they would gladly let us be their purveyors of water— that possible—but beyond this they will/not encourage us at all. We mention these items, which could be continued for a column, not to excite any ill-will against the Commonwealth, which is acting absolutely within its rights, but to emphasise the obvious moral that in business matters every community, great and small, manages its affairs with a keen eye to its real or supposed interests. We shall still gladly sell to the Australians when they want to buy of us, and when it pays us to do so. We shall still unite with them in common purposes, whenever we think it is desirable to do so. And we shall still be unfeignedly glad that Australia is held by our own blood-brothers, who are fiscally handicapping our butter, our bacon, and our bran, rather than by some alien race which greeted our produce with open ports. It Sydney or Melbourne offered us the fastest mail route to London we should still cheerfully send our letters that way. As it happens, the fastest way is via 'Frisco—and the United States is as ripe for reciprocity as Australia is blossoming for restriction.

To illustrate the extent and nature of possible tariff effects: in 1899, we sent £30,000 worth of butter to free-trade New South Wales, and £12,000 to protected Victoria, besides £10,000 to Tasmania, and £5000 to West Australia. Of cheese, New South Wales took £13,500 worth, Victoria only £4000, and the other colonies £10,000. The Federal duty of threepence per lb on butter and cheese must tend to bring Sydney purchases down and to affect all. The great bulk of the timber we sent over was sawn, little more than two per cent, of the whole being exported from the colony in log the approaching denudation of our forest lands has long been giving rise to anxiety, and the evident Federal intention to pluck us bare will force public attention to the whole question. Timber, by the way, is the only important item of our colonial export trade which now depends mainly upon the Commonwealth market ; and it is one which the Commonwealth cannot possibly supply for itself within the lifetime of its founders. We shall be affected by the Tariff, but as for our being squeezed into Federation, that is absurd. So long as we can regulate our colonial trade to suit changing conditions, can get good prices and fair terms, it is a matter of indifference to us whether we sell in Melbourne or in Durban, in Albany or in Capetown, in Sydney, in 'Frisco, or in London. The Federal consumer will pay for the policy of his new Government, and pay exceedingly heavily, but we can look on with equanimity so long as we do not seriously suffer as sellers. And we need not so suffer if the Government energetically assists the people of the colony to secure the London market, to enlarge the African market, and to open up the American market. The Federal Tariff will hurt none but the Australians themselves, if we are wise enough to protect ourselves by wider trading, and by establishing the reciprocities open to us.