Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price 1d. WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1887. Manufactures or Settlement?

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2097, 27 July 1887, Page 2

Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price Id. WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1887. Manufactures or Settlement?

In these pre-election times certain Backing politicians are making night hideous by declaring that New Zealand must become a great manufacturing country, and that prohibitive protection will infallibly make her one. According to these unripe statesmen absolute protection will crown this colony with a prosperity of which the history of nations has no parallel record. One raw would-be representative declares that, if we only had protection, British manufacturers would sell off and bring their capital, their artisans, and families and lay them at onr feet. Such assertions are of course utter bunkum, the outcome of ignorance, or political quackery. Let us suppose, however, this crude nonsense to be true. For the argument’s sake, let us imagine that the fiat in favor of rigid protection has gone forth, and the British manufacturers and artisans landed on our shores, and that we are entered in the great manufacturing race. How much better off would the mast of people be t Let us see by the light of experience. All men, it will be conceded, desire true happiness and prosperity. True happiness demands something more than mere wages, sufficient food, and raiment. Happiness involves fine physical health, and health, in its turn, demands favorable conditions of life—fresh air, pure water, light, decent homes, facilities for exercise and recreation. The most prosperous manufacturing city in the wide wor'd affords none 'of these things—not one —to her operatives. Visit any manufacturing centre on this globe, and there—infallibly as if following some law of nature—we discover a palefaced, nervous, and stunted population ; there we find an abysmal poverty and degradation of which the nativeborn New Zealander has simply no conception ; there we find crime, prostitution and insanity. What are the causes P Drink and improvidence, say those easy philosophers who hate to look benealb the surface of things. But improvidence and drunkenness aro among effects only. The true causes are terribly crowded dwellings, necessitated by th* poverty of the workers, the unhealthy nature of nearly every manufacture, and the utter lack of fresh air, pure water, light and reasonable recreation. As manufactures succeed fresh manufactories spring up, emitting foul gasses, and foetid exhalations, poisoning those living in the neighbourhood —the mechanics and artisans, and their children, who must live near the work. Intemperance is, it might be a necessity of the working man’s lu irlliiy surroundings, and each gene-

.i.’.ion of children reared undei such ci.eum-bnces becomes more enfeebled than tho preceding generation, and the race deteriorates. Wealthy manufacturers may flit to green lanes and rote-clad villas; the operative has no such refuge. Some three or four years ago, Mr Bright stated that “ 30 per cent of all the inhabitants of Glasgow had but one room in which to live, eat, and sleep,” and this fact cannot be explained away by the low wages of unskilled labor, for a large proportion of this percentage are skilled mechanics. But our brave protectionists would not of course permit such a state of things here. How will they prevent itf In what way will New Zealand escape the curse under which the manufacturing populations of the world suffer ? The prosperity of the artisans and mechanics of the world through is a delusion and a sham. Mr Henry Georgeradical of radicals —admits :

“ The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago tbeboldcst imagination could not have dreamed But in factories where labor-savior' machinery has reached ila most wonderful development, little children are at work; wherever the new forces are anything like utilised, large classes are maintained by charity or live on the verge of recourse to it; amid the greatest accumulations of wealth, men die of starvation, and pony infants suckle at dry breasta.”

How do our Solons propose to evade this general law of our so-called civilzation ? By protection ? As well hope to sweep heavenwards on a witch’s broom. Neither protection nor freotrade have in any country done more than temporarily improve the position of the wage-earning classes, but both protection and free trade have improved the position of manufacturers and capitalists, and there is no despotism so absolutely crushing and grinding as the power wield .id by capital employed in manufactures. Says Mr George

“ The tendency in all branches of industry is to the formation of tings against which the individual is helpless, and which exert their power upon Government whenever their interests may thus be served.”

We have but touched ou this im portant topic, but we have shown sufficient to cast a grave doubt upon the patriotism of those who clamor to make this a manufacturing country, and who will generally be found to be persons desirous of obtaining cheap labor. At the same time we do not believe that either protection or freetrade will make Aeiv Zealand a manu factoring country within the next I and fifty yer.rs—by that time v t to have left it.