THE TAILOR AND THE TARIFF.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8209, 14 June 1888, Page 3

THE TAILOR AND THE TARIFF.

TO THEBDITOB. Sir,—" But," gays the Protectionist tailor, "what are you raving about? You farmers share the benefit of Protection as well aa wo do. We have put a stinging duty on imported oats and wheat and flour and rice and butter and :cheese and food of all sorts.'.' "Precisely, my sartorial friend; but if Newcastle put an import duty on coal, how would that be ? Would coal rise in price in Newcastle ? What we farmers and miners need to be on a level with you would be an export bonus on uncoiued.gold and agricultural produce of all sorts. But we don't really want that, because we have the sense to see that' we and we only would have to pay it. We would only give the Customs a job to take 10s out of one of our pockets and put 5s back into another, keeping 5s for their trouble in the matter." " But if jou get a bonus on exports," says the tailor, " which is not a thing in reason or which I would ever consent to-^but if you did get it, we would surely have to pay our share of it as well as you." " Not so, my friend. Let us get to the root of the matter. There is too much surfacing on this subject altogether. You would have to pay your share certainly : but we would have to give you the money to pay it with, or everything would come to a deadlock. You earn no money, not a fraction, except what you get from us or people_depending on us, as you yourself are. The nice little piles you all hope to accumulate from your protected industries must all come from the noil. You have got coats to sell value 20s. You say to me, My friend and neighbour,we are all brothers; you must buy, your coat from me for 30s. If you sell to the butcher, the baker, or the undertaker, it is the same —they get the money from me directly or indirectly. This 10s you receive more than you are en titled to for your coats acts as a poor rate on the'ieal producing industries of the country., They give it to you and you give nothing whatever in return." Are the serfs in Russia really used worse, or have they their earnings.milked from them any more unjugtly? Now, my f risnd the tailor, I woald say to you, would you not be better you and your girls and boys, in the country amongst the green fields, with your cottage and your, garden, and your cows and crops, or if you can't attain to these things yet awhile, assisting those who have -"ottages and gardens and cows and crops to raise or manufacture products which can bo exported aud sold for money? You will not hurt, but benefit those already engaged in these industries. The greater the production the greater would be the facilities for shipment, and the lower would be tbe freights. Increased skill and improved qualities of the products would go hand in hand with increasing quantities, and a steadier market for Now Zealand products would result. Your lads and lassies would grow up healthy and strong with innocent tastes aud pleasures, instead of as at present, your girls with sallow cheeks, contracted waists, and expansive-improvers, blossoming in the finery of artificially stimulated wages, with troops of squalid children in thu nearfuture, the fruits of the system: Your'sons—; city life, beer, billiard?, and cigarette, and theprospective fathers of , squalid children, the deninens of future slums.—l am, &c, June 11. FAnftUHAB, Fobbes. >