THE FALLACY OF PROTECTION.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 12865, 25 May 1905, Page 8

THE FALLACY OF PROTECTION.

To the Editor. Sir,— Permit me to pay a tribute to the writer of Friday's leader on the above question as the argiujnents employed are unanswerable. That word Protection is a snare and a delusion, and.tfhe better name is restriction. Free trade is not a policy in the ordinary word; it is natural unrestricted trade It is therefore clean cut and definite, as it proposes $0 leave matters alone and do nothing, just as is the case between these islands., On the other hand, restriction is not clean cut, as it is interference, and of course how much interference is never agreed upon. iEven -the most rabid Protectionists cannot, and, by the nature of the thing, never will agree on any line of demarcation in such a vague proposal. Not only is the perpetual unsettled question of how much tax on the various kinds of goods, but there is the more ridiculous split that must occur in the whereabouts of the lines and boundaries where the legal robjbtery is to take place, as the inhabitants of. this globe interchange the products of their labour one with another. The whole fallacy is based on ignorance of facts and laws. The idea that money is sent away when a country imports is a delusion, because international exchange is carried on by bookkeeping. Indeed, money is only a system of bookkeeping !pure and simple. The idea that people want the work of making a thing is a delusion, as it is the article that is wanted, and work is the .means to the end. People are willing to work as a means to secure the end, but as individuals we try and get thfc greatest results with the least exertion, and this can jp best done by the {minute division of labour, which is only possible and practical under Free Trade.— I am, etc., ■E. STEVENSON.