HENERY GEOEGE ON PROTECTION.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 11130, 16 February 1886, Page 2

HENERY GEOEGE ON PROTECTION.

Henry George writes in the "tfelbourne Argus thus : — " What would be thought of tbe Congress man who should propose as a working man's measure, to divide the surp us in the Treasury between William H. Vanderbilt and Jay Gould, and who should gravely argue that to. do this would be to rise wages in ail oc« cupations, because Vanderbiltand Gould, finding themselves so much richer, would at once raise the wa^es of their employees; (hat this would Jead to the raising of wages on all rnilrouis, and this again t<> fie raisi'isr of wa^-M in all occupa ions, Y--t the contention that protective duties upon goods raise "wages . involves assump'ions precisely similar to these. It is cliirned that protection " • raises- the wages of labour — that ia to say of labour generally. It U not merely contended that it raise,? wages in the special industries protected by the tariff. That would be to confess a partial dia* -„ tribution of the benefits of protection ; which its advoca tes are always anxiou j to decry. It ia always assumed by pro* : : teetionists that the benefits of protection are felt in all industries, and even the wages of farm labourers, in aB industry which in the United States is nob and cannot be protected by the tariff, a-e. pointed to as showing the results of protection. Now the direct effect of pro* tsctien is, by cheeking the importation of foreign commodities, to increase tho price of such commodities in the Home markets, thereby enabling certain small capitalists to make larger profits. It is only as it does this, and so long as it does this, that protection is of any avail -can have any encouraging effect at all, and whatever effect it has mast be derived from this. The contention that protec-? •"•"•on raises wa^es involves, therefore, jan assumpti -us j — (1) That an increase in. ike profits of employers means inoreuse in the wastes of their wjrkin^ men ; and (2) that iucrease oi wages in the protected occupations involves an in-, crease of wages in all occupitions. is soon as these asauinptions are stated their falsity is apparent. Is there anyone who supposes that because an employer makes larger profits he pays higher wages ? "