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Star (Christchurch), Issue 5993, 30 July 1887, Page 7

{From the Lyttelton Times,)

The most important statement ever mad© "by an English Prime Minister since the repeal of the Corn Laws has just been made Tby Lord Salisbury at Norwich. Speaking with the full force of his high office, Lord Salisbury admits that the position of the Freetraders is no longer tenable. This is what we have come to after forty years of Freetrade practice. Instead of the brotherhood of nations we have an industrial war of peoples. The great policy of Freetrade which has created, a literature of political economy seems in danger of death ten years before the Jubilee celebration of its birthday. Lord Salisbury, who makes the announcement of the exceeding probability of this danger, is careful to say nothing against the principles of Free trade. He finds himself compelled, however, to declare that it is time to begin to give up the practice of that great economic principle. His argument is that Freetrade, without being positively wrong, has destroyed some of tho most indispensable interestsof the British community. When language of that kind is used by the holders of political power about a great princixile of policy, that principle may be regarded as practically doomed. The significance of the language is accentuated by the time chosen for its utterance. The Irish question no longer blocks the way. The ordinary business of Parliament having been made once more possible by the passing of the Crimes Act, the Tory leader is anxious for a policy to keep his heterogeneous Party togethor. "Were he deprived of the great Whig families who have helped him to make coercion into law, his majority would at once become a minority. In this extremity the landed interest suggests itself to him as supplying the best conceivable bond of further union. Therefore he foresees that the application, of Freetrade principles may have to be given up for "the benefit of the farmers." The foreseen retracing of steps is apparently more safe than it is limited. Were *t to be limited to the landed interest alone there would be small chance of gaining public opinion over to the side of the continued Whig-Conservative Union. But throughout the land there is a reaction in favour of Protection. Not only haß Freetrade been " condemned by everyone but ourBelves," as Lord Salisbury said at Norwich, and said truly, but the condemnation has been joined in by very many of " ourselves," as he knows very well and might have said too. He might have done so with effect without going beyond the question of the sugar bounties, on which he spoke so decidedly to a deputation of working men the other day, and on which those of the various Foreign Governments which have not spoken with equal decision against his proposal for alteration of their fiscal policies, have replied in an ominously half-hearted way. The great and growing party which is in favour of Protection is not likely to be made to grow less by the failure of the Government on the sugar bounties question. It is not too much to suppose that Lord Salisbury, foreseeing that failure, has made up his mind that the time has come for conciliating the Protectionists who are not of the landed interest. Hence he has discovered that there are other "anomalies" of Freetrade which will have to be given up. All of which means that the Tory Prime Minister, seeing the growth of the Protectionist Party, has determined to put himself at the head of that Party and lead it to victory. We are within measurable distance of the time when Freetrade will be without a refuge amongst the nations of the earth. When the present election contest began in New Zealand, the Freetraders were standing on the ground of English practice, and employing tho sneer of the English doctrinaire. The ground is disappearing by stress of economic earthquake, and the sneer will have to be bestowed upon the subterranean darkness where weeping and gnashing of teeth are the only solace of the disappointed politicians who have disappeared from the field. It is impossible for the electors of the Colony to accept the candidates who have pinned their faith to a rapidly flying cause.