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New Zealand Mail, Issue 658, 3 October 1884, Page 12

At a time when some of our politicians are seriously inclined to change a Free Trade creed into one of Protection, and not a few of the working classes are willing to listen to them, it is refreshing to read the plain, steadfast replies of J ohn Bright to those who still question him concerning the rival systems, and ask if it would not be better for England to court prosperity by following in this matter the example of America. He recently told one of his correspondents that an inquiry into the condition of Protected Countries —the United States, France, Germany, or Russia —would show that they were suffering more than Great Britain.; that in America there is shorttime work and lower wages, and that there has of late years been in that country a large increase in bankruptcies, whilst in Great Britain there has been a large decrease. He goes on to say that, with some local exceptions, the British working classes were never so well off under Protection as they are

now. Turning to America, he is equally emphatic :—“ Mr Blaine speaks for the Protected manufacturers, who have their hands in the nation’s pocket, and are unwilling to take them out. He talks as foolishly as our Tory Statesmen and landowners talked forty years ago, and with as little, wisdom and truth.” As to France, Mr Bright believes she pays a bounty of nearly a million a year on her shipping, and yet her mercantile marine is small, and is to a large extent now unemployed. The letter from which we have quoted attempts nothing like an elaborate defence of Free Trade, but assumes (with good reason) that the question, as far as Great Britain is concerned, is settled, and that Protection will have no further trial. He concludes in a manner not at all calculated to soothe the feelings of the gentleman who had ventured to address him. He says :—“ I am astounded that you should be so unacquainted with the facts of the matter on which you have written to me. I think you know no more than an ordinary Conservative country gentleman knew before 1846, or than some of them know now.” Mr Bright would be equally ready to do battle with those who maintain that the question bears an entirely different aspect in these colonies, and that, whatever Free Trade may have done for Great Britain, it is a suicidal game for Australasian communities to play. New Zealand especially should endeavour to keep herself as far as possible untrammelled by the chains of Protection. - A firm faith in Free Trade is not incompatible with a desire to encourage local industries by the granting of assistance in the earliest stages of development.