REOUCED TO AN ABSURDITY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12747, 19 April 1909, Page 4

REOUCED TO AN ABSURDITY.

The Weekly Scotsman says thait Rosyth is evidently destined to provide for the people of Scotland an illuminating objectlesson in the working of Free-Trade, as free Trade is interpreted by Mr Asquith's Government. For the construction of the dock walls of the great new' naval base granite blocks are required; and as it would appear they are not to be found in Scotland, or England, or* Ireland, at so cheap a rate as they can be imported from Scandinavia, with the cost of transport thrown in. And so the Government, who arc deeply concerned about unemployment, arc found passing the contract to a foreign country, in order to save ,£30,000 on an estimate of ,£134,000. This, says the Scotsman, is not a question of economics; it is a question of common-sense. It is difficult to imagine any saleable commodity into which labour enters more than the quarrying and shaping of granite. The Rosyth granite contract primarily concerns the employment of labour. And while the Government are voting public money freely for the relief of unemployment — Mr. Aequith intimated in October last that the central grant ■ would be raised to JHOO.OOu, and the policy of sanctioning local loans is involving the expenditure of millions — an obvious opportunity of providing employment within our own shores is thrown away. Reduced to the absurd, this means that the British workman "may be* sent to tho workhouse in order' that tli© foreign workman may make a comfortable living. It was suggested in the iiouse of .Commons recently by irate interroeratoßS ofi the First Lord of the Admiralty that cheap foreign labour might be imported to carry out the Rosyth contract ; and Mr McKenna was only able to retort that in such a case the Admiralty would have to be consulted. But if the Government decide to import cheap Scandinavian granite — Mr W. Redmond sugeesta it is the product of convict labour — in preference to What Aberdeen or Cornwall or certain parts of Ireland can offer at a slightly larger price, there is loeicallv no defence a?ainst bringing into Scotland batches of Poles, or Scandinavians, in order that the building- of a great dffensive naval station in Scottish waters may be done as cheaply as possible.