OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 265, 26 February 1889, Page 2

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(FROM oua OWN COHRESPONDENT.) Sydney, Feb. 13. The general election has now so far advanced that some of its results can be prognosticated with certainty. In the first place there will be no majority for Protection. At the time I write the relative numbers of members returned are, Protectionists, 52; Free Traders, 59. To-day’s polling ought to give the Protectionists 10 seats, and the Free Traders 5, but in the elections which take place on Saturday, and which complete the series, the Free Traders should have a slight preponderance. It may be taken for granted, therefore, that parties will be so evenly balanced .that neither will be able to carry out its views on fiscal matters. Under such circumstances the most obviously prudent course is for the moderate men of both sides to unite in carrying out a policy intelligently adapted to the needs of the country, but untrammelled by the dogmas of the contending doctrinaires.

By vigorously shouting “Free Trade” whenever their administration has been called in question, successive Ministries have excused themselves for the grossest derelictions of Ministerial duty. They have allowed the greatest fundamental industries of the country, such as agriculture, to retrograde until their position at the present moment is humiliating and disgraceful. The obvious step which every other colony in the group his taken to encourage cultivation they have neglected, because, if they had adopted them, they would have trodden on the toes of importers. They declare that their action, or, to speak more accurately, their inaction, is due to fi lelity to Free Trade. But they levy a large revenue through the Custom House, a great deal of which is protective in its incidence. And, protective or not, it is plain that Customs duties, no matter for what purpose they are levied, are restrictions upon trade. In the present state of things they appear to be a necessity. Even Great Britain, the only great nation professing Free Trade, resorts largely to them. The natural con'clusion of sensible men, therefore, would be, that since we must have Customs duties, they should be intelligently adjusted so as to afford a stimulus to production in return tor the inevitable hindrances which they impose upon commerce, But hare tha doctrinaire comes in, ”It is quite lawful (he saya) to hamper trade for revenue purposes, but you must take the greatest care that you du not seek to obtain any indirect benefit therefrom in way of encouraging homa productiveness." This position has always seemed to mi a self-evident stultification, a confession that the Free Trade dogma, as long as there are Custom Houses in existence, has not a lag to stand upon, Even admitting that Custom Houses in themselves are an evil, every sane man, much more, it might be supposed, every sane statesman, endeavours to obtain from the evils which he cannot wholly avoid, as much good as possible. But no, says the doctrinaire. " You may hamper trade, you may even hamper trade tor protective purposes, provided it is done in a haphazard kind of way. But the moment you try to reduce the fiscal chaos to order, and adjust it so as to meet the needs of a young and growing community, you are a fiscal heretic. You do what is harmful, pure and simple. But as noon as you endeavour to get some good out of it, you put yourself outside tha pale," Reasoning so desired is supported by assertions equally tach. “No import duty can encourage production and produce revenue at the same time ” is one of them—a selfevident fallacy which bears its falsehood on its unblushing brow, and is contradicted by the experience of every state in the world. The import duties on dairy produce in this colony produce revenue and at the same lime they afford some reasonable security to a large and flourishing industry, that it shall not be liable to ba swamped out of existence by the surplus products of other countries. Their repeal would mean distress and ruin to many an industrious and deserving family. It would, if accuracy in these matters is desirable, be more in accordance with truth to say that no intelligently adjusted import duty can fail both to bring in revenue and encourage production at the same time. The experience of the United States is that a protective tariff o! the utmost severity fills the Treasury so full that the very surplus becomes a matter of anxiety. And still, in many circles, this boary-beaded lie passes current as the veriest truth.

There are many similar fictions which pass current as truths, and which anyone who can think for himself can detect with ease. All of them forbid such a union of moderate men as appears called for by the circumstances. And there is great reason to fear that they may be persisted in by extremists of one type until extremists of the opposite order gain the upper hand, and the mon of moderation and discrimination are put out bodily. The latter have their chance when parties are equally balanced. Unfortunately tho very moderation which is their most useful virtiue often prevents them from seeing their opportunity until it has gone for ever. Henry George, who is repeatedly quoted as a great authority in this discussion, admits that Protection and Freetrade are two sides of the same shield. Then, with strange inconsistency for so acute a logician, he goes on to devolop a laborious argument that the shield has only one side. But all extremists tend to self stultification as naturally as water runs down hill. If the shield has two sides the fair inference is that sometimes one side might be the right one to present, sometimes the other. The cir oumstances of different industries, all in their own degree necessary to complete the fulness of national life, differ as much as the ciroumstanoes of different individuals, The tonic treatment that develops the strength of the robust would be death to the weakly. But our modern political te ichers, like Squeers at Dotheboys Hall with his brimstone and treacle, insist upon serving all with the same dose. Yet it is plain that prosperity depends upon appropriate acti m suited to each individual case, which, therefore, needs to be carefully studied upon its own merj's.

As to tho tangible results of the present struggle they cannot be regarded in any other light than as marking the great advance of Protective ideas. There are already more Protootiouists seated than there were in the whole of the last Assembly, and even where Protectionists have been defeated, the vote oast in their favor, has been, in nearly every instance, very much larger than any previous one. In many instances, indeed, the margin is so email as to point to the certainty of a Froteotionjet victory at the next election. The cause of the importers has reached such a crisis that they are now as jubilant over the merest temporary respite as they formerly wore over an unequivocal victory. Time was when the Protectionist members in the House could be counted on one's fingers, but of the next Assembly they will constitute nearly the half. This result in my opinion is due more to the callousness of their opponents and their neglect of the real interests of the country than to any great brilliancy of their own. It is the fashion of course among so called Freetraders to attribute it to any other cause than one which is so plainly humiliating. You hear men talking of the solid Catholic vote and read dark hints of the probable fate of the Education Act. But the very resort to such tactics show’s a growing want of faith in the party shibboleth, for if that were sufficient to excite loyalty and devotion there would ha no need for taking up those which are questionable and irritating. As a matter of fact I don't believe tho Education Act has entered into practical consideration at all, except in the minds of some half-crazy enthusiasts. As for the Catholic vote, it has been more than oounterbi lanced by the ultraProtestau t vote and by the Lmal Option vote, The fooling of the country is not that sectaries and fanatics, whatever their denomination. And the feeltag of one half of the country is that the Government which has so long foisted itself upon them under the title “Free Trade” is bud government, and that it is prepared to accept considerable risks and make pretty sweeping experiments if they are required to secure a change. The new men are at least pledged to try to do good, and if they are faithful to their pledges they j are certain to find out the way. I Scarcely any interest can be taken at such a crisis in matters outside politics. When I the great question is settled, and it is seen upon what basis future government is to I proceed, we shall be able to return to the more . ordinary and perhaps, more wholesome in* f terests oi every day iite, I