The Star. THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1887. FREETRADE DEATH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5961, 23 June 1887, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1887. FREETRADE DEATH.

SOME REMAKKABLE EVIDENCE. Disastrous Results have been experienced in England in connection with an industry which, according to reliable evidence, has in the past afforded some sort of employment, and at least some appreciable means of living, to " nearly three million men, women, and children." The statistical information to which we refer w.as collated by Mr A. M. Brookfield, the Conservative member for Sussex East, and published in the form of a letter in the columns of the St Ja-tves' Gazette. Mr Brookfield points out, tersely and clearly, the fact that the hop-growing industry is a peculiarly important one by reason of the large proportion of money paid for labour. Every year, as some of our readers will be aware, there is a wonderful migration from the poorest parts of the great metropolis of people whose destination is the hop districts. During the picking season, these abject poor have been accustomed to make a little money, which constitutes their "stand-by" for the whole year. If, then, the industry is by any cause destroyed, the results can only be regarded as disastrous. The extinction has already been begun. The hop-gardens, Mr Brookfield says, are being grubbed up in all directions ; the extent of land so diverted now representing something like eight thousand acres. It need scarcely be said that the growers have not adopted such an extreme measure without great pressure. The pressure is a financial one. Even a bare profit has not been made of late, and the cultivators of the land are Bimply starved out, so far as hop-growing is concerned. How comes this about ? Some little time ago, there was an interview between England's Prime

Minister and a deputation from the hop-growers. These men told their story in plain, unvarnished terms. They wanted efficient Protection. Protection for themselves; Protection for the hundreds of thousands of toilers — almost baby toilers, . some of them — who made the gardens their yearly rerVJezvous, and earned *' the scanty bit and drop" wherewith to keep body and soul together. In 1860, the English excise duty on hopa was removed; but at the same time the import duty on foreign hopa was removed also. That step was of course perfectly in. accordance with a Freetrade policy: ifc was right enough in theory, but in its results it is proving utterly disastrous. In marked contrast to this is the experience of America. ■ There, a Protective duty lends direct encouragement, and there, as a natural consequence, an industry so eminently beneficial by reason of its capacity for the employment of labour, is increasing vigorously. Small wonder that throughout England the people are at last rousing themselves ; that at last they are beginning to realise how deeply the Middleman is drinking from " Life's golden river," and that from ' one end of the country to the other a demand for some measure of Protection is being heard. With regard to this particular instance, the hard fate of the hopgrowers, and the 6till harderfateof the army of workers dependent upon them, the Mark Lane Express has a scathing comment :— • "All this (that Mr Brookfield has narrated) is quite true, but our national policy decrees that the cultivation of hops, as well as 1 that of all other crops, must decay, in order to carry out the theory of Freetrade before a laughing and unsympathetic world." To what has here been written we add this : Again and again it has been urged that in a new Colony such as New Zealand, adequate Protection is a first essential if thcpeople are to be prosperous, if the Many rather than the Few are to live in the contentment born of reasonable prosperity. Let the People, then, look to it that they are unceasingly on the alert. The Middleman of New Zealand has not less of the vampire in him than the hungriest specimen England can produce.