TARIFF QUESTIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16434, 24 May 1921, Page 6

TARIFF QUESTIONS.

PROTECTION AND FREETRADE. ADDRESS BY MR FROSTICK. Air ,1. A. Frostick gave an address m the hail of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce last night, on “Is Protection Good lor the .NationF” The address was given under the auspices of the Chamber; and Mr \V. M. Tyers (president) was in the chair. There was an attendance of about 150) and amongst those present were Mr J. M’Combs, ALP., Air J W. Jenkin (president of the Canterbury Industrial Association), and Mr J. 11. Collins (secretary of the Board of Trade). The chairman said that Mr Frostick was so well known as an industrialist that an introduction to a Canterbury audienco was not He had been a member of the Chamber for thirty-two years, had been its president, and had had a long experience as an industrialist. Ho. therefore, was particularly Well qualified to speak on industrial questions. it was not intended that the address should be discussed, and no motion on the subject would be taken. Mr Frostick said that the subject was very difficult, because it might call upon some of them to eliminate self-interest for the good of the nation. JN umberless books, based on free-trade principles, had been written during the last fifty years, usually by university students or professors, but "lie could not find any evidence of the writers having applied their particular theories, or by practical results having demonstrated the soundness of those theories for tile benefit of the nation. The halo winch surrounded tho university, the professorial status, and the advantage which higher education gave to ally mail in the powers of expression, had enabled those theories to be presented in such an attractive form that the general reader frequently overlooked a most essential fact—that economic theory and industrial practice might be two altogether different things or, to express it in the more effective language of Dr J. S. Hecht. Fellow of tho Royal Economic Society:—“Although we have exposed the delusion upon which the arguments for free-trade are based, beginning with the fundamental principle's of economics, its apologists have evolved a set of catch phrases wherewith to confound their enemies, and which they have hitherto found very effective, more particularly as their opponents fought with weapons blunted by the acceptance of the law of supply and demand.” Dr Hecht continued : ,c We propose, therefore. to set out the most important of these spurious axioms, indicate their real meaning, and expose the flaws in their present application.”

OLD THEORIES NOT TENABLE. “ Having laced the battle of life at a very early age," Mr Frostick continued. “ I have had to rely very largely upon what one learns in the school of experience and observation, aided by statistical facts, rather than upon academic theories cleverly expressed. 1 shall try, although perhaps in a somewhat disjointed manner, to show that, with regard to the human element, tho teachings of the old school of economics were never right- Lb may have been that the hypotheses under which the school worked held for a time, but its theories, however specious in argument, have never been demonstrated by practical results for the uplifting of humanity. It is true enormous wealth has been amassed, but little or no regard has been paid to the claims of the human element: free-trade and poverty for the masses always have been the result. If ! succeed m showing that the economics of the old school established a working hypothesis whicty is no longer tenable*, it will create no greater divergence than the difference between applied medical science of to-day and that of twenty or thirty years ago—and of many other sciences.” He dealt separately with the following heads:—(l) That the true or fundamental asset of any nation is its people; (2) that in principle there is no difference between the production of food in any form and the production of manufactured articles of any kind ; (3) that anything operating to the detriment, or preventing the progress of any large section of a nation must be fundamentally wrong. In passing he said that in view of the coming demand for a larger measure of national production, people here were already in conflict with propaganda which appeared to be distinctly hypocritical. The. man who urged tho claims of people thousands of miles away, and gave that as his sole reason for advocating * free-trade, and utterly neglected the claims of the people of his own country, rendered himself liable to be charged with insincerity. No man was expected to impoverish himself, or his family, for the benefit of strangers, and in like manner no nation Could expected to impoverish itself for the benefit of another. New Zealand was now counted amongst the nations of the world, and had to work out its own destiny, and whilst it should not infringe" upon the rights iof other nations, it had tlie undoubted right to protect its own. The man who would not give preference to the production of his own country, or failed to encourage its development in every form, by that very act limited the economic well-being of his own nation, and incidentally, of every citizen, other than those who, like himself, found that greater personal profit could ho made out of foreign goods. Such a man discounted the value of the industry of his own fellow-citizens, and when he tried to cover his tracks by the cry of loyalty to the Empire, it gave evidence of sheer hypocrisy. If a mail stood for the principles of free trade, relying oh wliat, 110 considered to be sound principles, well and good, hut he should not seek to justify # his actions by spurious sentiment, for it must spurious if it forced his own fellow-citizens into unemployment. RIGHTS FOR ALL. Every person employed in production was performing a national duty, inasmuch as he was doing something for {mother section of the community that it was unable to do for itself, and vice versa. On the lines he had indicated they must concede to one another certain rights, speaking, of course, of producers. The farmer, the manufacturer or producer of any kind, who was working for the good of the con> inunity, had the right to receive interest on his investment in land, plant, and buildings, a good wage for his own labour when personally rendered: a good wage to those he employed, a fair trading profit also; a margin for contingencies which occurred in every form of production, none more so. than farming, where an adverse, season or even one-bad night might lay waste the whole season’s efforts. To that end, h© was strongly in favour of the principle of national control of prices for home consumption, no matter what those products were, as between the producer and the public. They had a very good example of the soundness of that principU in the present position regardihowheat, and bread, the same prev duct in various stages. The people had the assurance and satisfaction of knowing that tho price that they were paying foj their bread was a price which WAS fair fid the farmer who produced tlio wheat, with all its numberless risks which, probably, did not fcxisi to the «am© extent in any other industry. Therefore, it wa* entitled to b© pro tected by a margin for those contingencies to which he had referred. Aw it applied to wheat, so it should apply to wool or any other article. The poopie of this fißlT&ffy Should not desir© those, of their fellow-citizens who produced wo©! -to dispose of it at a price which, if continued for anv length of time, would result in inevitable min, and ho was sure that tho primary producers of this country, when tnoy un~ derstood the true relative position of production cf ovary kind, w«*uW *-

equally willing to protect as they were protected. With regard to the surplus products, the position was exactly the same, whether such surplus products were primary or otherwise. Having got a fair and proper price for home consumption of the articles required by exchange within the community, anything produced beyond the requirements of the country must he disposed of in the world's market, taking the risk for the time being of the prices ruling. ESSENTIAL# OF SOCIAL PLACE. I hero could be no real social peace and order until every class of citizen gave more attention to its respective duties and responsibilities and less attention io so-called rights. They urgently needed in their national life to cultivate more of the family spirit, where the material welfare of each member was manifested under tho sympathetic guidance ot tho head of the family, with the result that the welfare of the group stood before the interest, of any one member. That permitted the widest expansion—to the workshop, with the employer as the head ; the city with the council as the head; the country with the Government as the head; arid the Empire with the Ring as the representative head. If the family spirit was not destroyed by tho evil influence of greed and selfishness, they would soon attain a higher degree or social welfare find he could not think how any fair-minded man would desire it to be otherwise. Employers and workers alike should strive to create more than they could consume, for therein lay the source of national Wealth, which permitted of national progress. To leave this World better for the life they bad lived should be the aim of every man and lonian. Their duty was to add something to the building of tho nation, something that would remain after they had “gun© West*” All that wan asked was to apply tho family principle to their own country first; no other country had so great a claim upon them, and no matter to what extent they might follow that line of duty, there would be many things they must have by exchange with other countries. Widen the family idea and maintain the integrity of their own nation- They should not allow anything to happen in this country on tho lines of what had recently occurred in Free Trade England, where many of the mills were suddenly closed because German-made goods came into the English market at a price which was far below the English cost of pro-

THE NATION’S BACKBONE. Ho had, as far as possible, avoided long lists of figures, been use he knew how difficult it was for a speaker to maintain the interest of his audience when quoting figures, but he had prepared two tables, because of tho importance of the subject, believing that not 10 per cent of tho adult population of this country had any idea of the value Of tlio industries to the Dominion. The probable reason For that was that primary production, which was the very backbone of the nation’s life, because it was its food, was expressed in a few articles and represented huge sums of money, whereas the thousands of things which were manufactured, when considered individually, appeared to be more or less insignificant, although in the aggregate they represented the larger sum. He quoted from tables to show results obtained by the people of New Zealand in secondary production. Taking the year 1916, he showed that the total number of persons employed was 54,620; the sum invested in plant, land, and buildings was £1.7,157,800; the sum paid in wages was £7,845,320; the total value of manufactures was £42.206,000. He had taken the estimated available margins for increased manufacture, and estimating about two-thirds of those imports as a, fair margin for additional manufacture, the increased employment on the general average would be for 15,000 workcas, which, 011 the national average of producer unit to population—l9l6 census—was equivalent to a population larger than a new Christchurch. That additional population increased its own demand for food, clothing, shelter, and all things incidental to civilised life. He submitted balance-sheets, which, lie said, proved that the Government would lose nothing by way of revenue, but would gain enormously, through intensive manufacture, adding u, huge sum annually to the national wealth, after replacing every shilling of Customs revenue lost through making locally certain goods which hitherto had been imported. These figures, he said, went to show how the manufacturing nations had become rich out of all proportion to there which were purely agricultural. HIGHLY SKILLED PEOPLE THE MASTERS. In facing national problems they must be honest in respect to fact. It certainly should not be necessary for him to do more than mention what all the world should know, l hat the unskilled, Koonei- or later became the servant of the more highly skilled, be it individual or nation- To export, ! goods, the result of the labour of unskilled men. and import goods, the product of .skilled labour, was distinct evidence of national decadence. They dared not shut their eves to the fact that it was becoming increasingly difficult to induce the young people of this land to take up tho kind of employment where study and years of training were necessary to become skilled and efficient citizens. Young men were becoming more and more willing to enter the ranks of unskilled labour because of the comparatively high wage paid for such labour. Even skilled adult men had left their ©inplovnient and taken on unskilled work, and in doing so they had not realised the danger to their own lives, to the lives of their children, and, incidentally, to tho nation. He felt sure that if those who were responsible for the governing of this country did not take these questions moro vigorously in hand, New Zealand would gradually become a less skilled nation, and .just in proportion ns that took place, so would they become more and more the servants of some mono highly skilled people. If thev continued selling their primary productions at their iowest world value, and taking in exchange articles produced by the skilled labour of other countries, the process would keep New Zealand eternally poor. The whole question was one of principle as it applied to a nation. QUESTIONS. Mr Frostick, who was loudly applauded, was asked several questions. A member of the audience said that Mr Frostick had compared wages in England with wages in America. Would he state the wages paid in Italy. France and Germany, all protective countries r* “ I prefer to deal with matters in our own language,” lie replied; “ but if you want to go into it, I may say that before tho war, wages in Germany were about £1 2s, in France about the same, in Norway 19s lOd, and m Japan, for making boots, 7s 9d a week. 1 happen to know that.” Mr J* Hamlet said that in New South Wales tli© price of sugar was prohibitive, so much so that it, cost sjd a pound to convert fruit into jam. ’Through an enormous tariff in Australia, many people in the CommonWealth, were idle j\lr Frostick said that he was a pmtectidnifit only when the article eould be produced in New Zealand. The Dominion could not produce sugar, an<s it should come in free, but if the Dominion made beetroot sugar there should be a protective tariff. He was asked by Mi* .Light-band to whtit extent h© would advocate an increase of protection to the tanninp- industry. Ho said that he would not express an opinion as to the protection of any particular industry--111 reply io another question. Mr said that under noi mal condi-

tions. in the Old Country, the merchant was rich and tho farmer was poor: in this country the reverse had taken place—tho merchant was poor, comparatively, and the farmer was rich. Mr M’Combs said that the latest figures supplied by the Government Statistician in regard to secondary industries, supported Mr Frostick'e arguments as to the importance of that class of industry- The figures showed that between 1916 and 1918 the value of these industries had increased greatly. Mr Hamlet moved a hearty vote of thanks to Mr Frostick for his interesting address. He said that the address had been highly instructive. The motion was seconded by Mr Pavitt and carried with applause.