PROTECTION AND FARMERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1608, 16 July 1887, Page 3

PROTECTION AND FARMERS.

1q a recant article on “ How Protects Affects Farmers” the Auckland Evenit Bell says “ vVe do not know anythin more heartless than trying to mislead tl farmers of the colony by asserting that Protective tariff would work against then It is they of all others that would I benefited ; for while big sheep owners an a few others can find plenty of mark( for their productions by sending them 1 England, and thus can square exchange the little struggling farmer absolute] requires to have the market brought b( side him, or seven-eighths of his prodm lions can have no market at all. No on should require to bo shown that sue Protective tariff will lead to increase < employment, and the steady circulatio of money among the people 5 nc that the retention of money nmon ourselves will bo a benefit to the bod politic It is all very well t say that if we import French boots, w must pay for them with produce, and s our production is stimulated by th import of French boots. But we can pay for French boots with turnips, nor d we see any prospect of sending a cargo c shingle or palings to France. Sons things we may send : wool, frozen muttoi it may be, and a few other things—ver few, we regret to say. These they mi want in France as well as in England and a very good thing it is for those wh produce them. They can afford to bu; French boots. But Paris does not wan loads of firewood, or pumpkins or swee potatoes, or ox tails, or fresh eggs, 0 Waikato cheese, and a lot of other thing of this sort. At least, if the bootmaker of Lyons, Paris, and other places wan these things, they have not sent thei orders round this way yet, and our littl struggling farmers have no wool or frozei meat to send them. Yeiour little settler could find a market for their mill and butter and their firewood anc sweet potatoes among the boot makers and their families in th< adjoining villages, and the weaver at the woolmills in yonder town, and sc the great want which is universally ad mitted to be ruinously depressing to fur mere—the want of a market for their pro dace- - would be met at our own doors.’ The Bell goes on to say that the cruelt] of the existing condition is this: “Tha while the big and wealthy producer car send his produce and sell it in Europe, there comes back in exchange for i foreign manufactures which the pool struggling farmer must buy ; and so, ai it too often is under our unhappy socia l system, the poor are made but the tooli to administer to the wealth of tin wealthy." The conclusion at which Th( Bell arrives is, that “Froetrarie in oui circumstances is the doctrine of absoluti selfishness, by which the poor are madi to purchase what has been sent us fron distant lands in exchange for the produc tions of our sheep farmers, and a fee other wealthy producers; ” and tha “ Protection by giving us local markets i the true friend of the ordinary farmer anc the small producer,” and it expresses iti amazement that this is not so patent as tc be acknowledged by everybody.