The Star. MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1888.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6315, 13 August 1888, Page 2

The Star. MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1888.

Protection Banquet. The Protection Tjanquetat IVellingtcinjcn Saturday eveningxjomeßAs.the _t_ng^ __cc to a long and arduous struggle. We do not say that the sternest and .most *nn> compromising Protectionist 4iees in. thd present tariff the realisation of all ha hopes. -fagZeaTaniT-iH •ttflf;ywfi.Y»oTnnii'Hipd to the hard and-— asfr "policy -rrhiohculea •with^nch.evidaTi -.gnoJ fiffnAfa, Jor Jngtapfm, in Victoria. Tha Protection *— all xsised ronnd the -country is not abso_-_E-y adamantine and impenetrable. The«dvanced -E zotecthaust bas not ga__eaVe*Biything that his boql desires, but thepcinciple that mores bim has been recognised. The demand of the majority that onr struggling manufacturers should not. be swamped in fierce and unequal coonpetition with the, cheap labour oi foreign countries, bas at last been heard. What haa been done is in response to the pl__ly**eipresfled desire/of the manufacturers that the home market should be preserved for theni,-at least in those branches of trade and mannfactnre -which they are capable of supplying,_nd that they should be put in * position to employ the labour that is available here. The double benefit to employer and employed needs no showing. It must have been gall and wormwood to the .Freetraders to see the triumph of these principles., so opposed to the articles of their simple faith. It mußt have been the quintessence of bitterness to them to lead i_is morning the able.advocacy of those principles by% clever, penetrating theorist like Dr Fitchett, and a bluff,.practi caiman likeifcr Larnach. Sir Maurice O'Borke anust base winked — of conrse, with all his suave solemnity, and with due attention to fitting precedent — when he spoke of the gratification the banquet would give them. It must be of kin to the ""pleasure that's all bnt pain" of wbich Mr-Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan sing so sweetly in '*"CRatience." Mr Ballance, in his vigorous address, sounded a good note when he showed Tnin hearers how town and country must go hand in hand in Prote.*_k-— * The supposedly opposing interests of the farmer and the manufacturer hare been the great difficulty with many people otherwise willing to-accept Protection., and bow before the weight of theargra—srts in its favour. With the agriculturist and manufacturer in accord,.*better _n_a should be in store.