TO THE EDITOR.

NZ Truth, Issue 57, 21 July 1906, Page 5

TO THE EDITOR.

ttS^f?! 1 * un{J avory "Dung-hill," the "Crater 'l and the "Whisky-bottle " though apparently familiar subjects m •the daily life of my opponent have absolutely, no weight as alleged arguments against Protections That gentleman taunts me with being afraid to come to close quarters with him • his statement is perfectly correct. Judged by his one and a half columns of personal abuse, abuse -that is redolent of the "Dung-Mil," the "Crater" sand the "Whisky-bottle," a close personal acquaintance with that individual would be a most unpleasant experience. Such being- the case, it is now impossible for me to deal with that gentleman any further, lest his undesirable personality should pollute the pure air that blows around my 4 pumpkin-patch. No further reference, "therefore, will be made by me to "An Old Freetrader." / The <piestion under discussion is Protection as against Freetrade. The writer- of this maintains that the in.dustrics; of this -colony will flourish •under Protection, that the wages of ithe workers will be high under Protection. That under an absolutely, •prohibitive tariff the cheap shoddy, that is made m some J sweating den m an old and Freetrade city will not be able to enter this colony, and compete with product of the factory hands swho work m New Zealand under fair labor conditions and for good wages. The reason that a New Zealand •made pair of boots costs 25s while -an .English made pair only costs 12s 6d is due to the following, facts :— The New Zealand tanner who tans the leather receives £3 a week m wages; the tanner m Freetrade England gets 25s to ?0s a week. The shoemaker who made the New Zealand boot receives |£2 10s a week for five and a half days of eight hours; the worker m Freetrade England gets 25s a week for six days of ten hours each. The reason that a cheap shoddy suit can be made m England is because there is a good supply of infected rags with which to make shoddy, and further because the worker m England gets £1 to £1 10s a week for his work. The reason why a cheap shoddy suit cannot be. made m New Zealand is because there are not sufficient insanitary rags, out of which shoddy is mostly made; and further, because the New Zealand worker gets £2 10s to £3 10s a week for his labor. This writer maintains that a market m New Zealand for the, producers of wheat, wool, and mutton, would be a better market than ,one 12,000 miles away m England. And that a number of prosperous factories m New Zealand, where thousands of workmen could earn wages, would be a better thing for this colony, than a factory m England. I say that an importer with an office m town, who gives casual work to a few wharf laborers, m wheeling imported goods away from a foreign ship' with a Dutch captain* is not by any means as useful a citizen as the factory owner who would employ a large num-> ber of men m New Zealand at good wages, and m permanent employment. Freetrade has been tried m England for many, years and it has sent the workers of that country 'm thousands to the slums of the big cities to Freetrade has reduced the farmer m England to a state of stagnation,, m which he is fifty years behind the times m agricultural work. Freetrade England is seething with poverty to-day, the direct result of Freetrade, Women m England work ten hours a day making boys' suits and receive ten shillings a week. Women m England cover sunshades for is Od a dozen. Women m Free-

trade England make a Chesterfield coat and skirt that sells m a shop for 28s, for which work the woman maker receives tenpence. At Gainsborough's old silk factory, m Sudbury, 400 hands were employed thirty years ago. To-day forty, people work there. The highest wage paid to a woman is 12s and to a man £1 a week for six days of eleven hours each. Last year Sir John Gorst, Lady Warwick, and the medical officer to the London School Board, visited a poor school m London. Thirty per cent of the children had had no breakfast ; others had been fed at the school by private charity. A large number had been told not to go home at dinner-time, as there would be no food for them, and 55 per cent, of the total attendance showed signs of habitual starvation. The writer of this; while on a visit to England, attended a political meeting at Hampstead, where a foreign trader was addressing a meeting of workers. "Which are you going to have," he said : "the big beef stake you have now or the dog's meat sausage ?" And the crowd, hardly one of whom sees a beef steak m a year, yelled approval. The farm laborers m England were receiving twelve shillings a week as wages. I attended a land sale m Suffolk when a farm was offered for sale at £20 an acre, and failed to find a purchaser ; 30 years ago the same quality of land was selling at £80 per 'acre. From one end of England to the other can 'be seen the trail of poverty and stagnation that follows m the wake of Freetrade— Freetrade that puts the white worker under the heel, of Ah Sin and Sam How. A Freetrade policy is to grow raw material m the shape of wool and send it away to some far distant country, and then to«pay, a big price -to import shoddy clothing to cover the nakedness of the people who produced the raw material. Freetraders say, this is a mark of prosperity. It is good, they say, for a country to have, bills for shoddy clothing coming from over the sea. Then, on the same principle, it would be good for 1 all - households to have big drapers' bills, and th« family with such bills should be more prosperous than the one which makes its -own clothing. I want ..to see the money that is sent away across the sea to pay for shoddy kept m the colony, so that the butcher and baker may get some of it. The writer of this says m conclusion that it will take something more than contemptous assumptions, spiteful sneers, or base insinuations to alter any one of the above facts.— Yours, etc., J.Y, Cole-street, Masterton.