MODIFIED PROTECTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20947, 10 August 1931, Page 13

MODIFIED PROTECTION.

Sir,—Mr. Vaile's letter, coming from a man of his ability, is both amusing and pathetic. His picture of the little New Zealand Gulliver tackling the Brobdingnag United States needs tho pen of the great dean to do it justice. Cobden and j Bright fitted well into Crimean times, with England the manufacturing centre of the world and most other Powers in absolute need of her products. Their followers wish to apply their precepts to a changed universe, three-fourths of whose inhabitants manufacture their own r ~oods, will continue to do so, and will dump their surplus on to us, inevitably leading to' unemployment. The remaining fourth, the British Empire, must willy-nilly render itself economically self-sufficient or go to the wall The bonds of race and sentiment are powerful, but are inevitably weakened by the passage of time. If to these we add inter-Empire trade and mutual self-protection, we shall endure. To conclude, one of tho great men of all time said: " Grattez le Rnsse and vous trouverez lo Tart arc." Napoleon did both. How did he end ? We are doing the first, let us avoid the second. Does Mr. Vaile remember the perhaps prophetic, words of Pope: Ihy hand, great Anarch, lets tho curtain fall, and universal darkness buries all. S. A- Bull.