The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1879.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 216, 19 July 1879, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1879.

happens that the laborer pays for the construction of our towns and villages, and indirectly showed that labor is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities; the merchant, shopman, carter, storekeeper, carpenter, all giving their labor in return for that of the other. The Custom duties alonebeing high or low as the nation or colony inclines to Free Trade or Protection, .We trust our explanation was perfectly clear and our readers thoroughly grasped the importance of the fact that labor pays for everythingNow, let us take up this one item, Customs duties, for herein lies the gist of the entire difference between Free Trade and Protection, The Custom duties are equivalent, let us say, to the cost of Government, It rests with the Legislature to impose those duties in whatever manner it may deem expedient, If the Legislature desires to leave labor untrammelled it simply imposes an all-round duty to pay the bare cost of Government, If, on the other hand, it desires to favor any particular article of industry within the colony, it imposes a heavier duty than is necessary upon the foreign production; but im-

mediately it does so. everyone has to pay for the benefit of the particular industry protected. The payment is only fractional, but nevertheless it is a payment. Everybody else's labor within the colony is trammelled for the benefit of the one. This is Protection. Now, the United States Legislature holds that Protection is necessary in a young colony to foster production, So does Victoria. England, on the other hand, says: "Let the laborer (consumer) buy everything as cheaply as lie can, whether the production may bo a home or a foreign one. The greatest good for the greatest number, A fair field and no favor, If a production requires nursing, in the face of foreign competition, the production is a luxury and a weight upon the greater numbov of laborers, Each village, town, country, nation should produce that which alone it can best produce in the face of all competition. If America can supply us (England) with wheat and meat cheaper than our own agriculturalists, why should we place a burthen upon all the carpenters, and bricklayers, and factory hands I True, our agriculturalists will suffer, but the landlord will have to reduce his rents until the value of English farm lands and American farm lands are equalised. Quick sea communication has simply reduced the value of English farms to American farms. To fight against such a state of things would be wrong. Therefore Protection is erroneous." These arguments are worth careful study, for the principles that underlie the science of political economy apply equally to young colonies as to old nations.