OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 351, 14 September 1889, Page 2

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

|FBOM ova OWN COBBBBPONDENT. J Sydney, August 28 The political event of the week has been the assembling of the Free Trade Conference which commenced its sittings on, Monday night, The proceedings were tolerably enthusiastic, but the attendance of Free Traders was not sufficiently large to prevent the presence of a contingent of malcontents, who made an organised, and only top successful attempt to prevent the speakers from being heard. This is a continuation of a course of deliberate interruption which has been systematically employed of late st all Free Trade gatherings. I need hardly say that it ia disgraceful, that it brands those who wilfully organise it as consciencsless ruffians, and that it gives the community a tolerable good indication of what it might expect if these gentry should ever gain the upper hand. Fortunately, that is never likely to happen. Fortunately, also, truth remains true whatever the merits or demerits of those who attack, or those who defend. At the right time she will assert herself for the vindication of those who have faithfully wooed her. It is quite possible to conceive that when it was first given to the world, the 47th proposition of Euclid might have caused ae hot a controversy as that which is raging at present between Free Traders (so called) and Protectionists (so called) or, as they prefer to call one another. ” Foreign Traders ” and " Restrictionisis.” Still there is not a great deal of controversy about it now. Now, unquestionally there is a truth as self-evident and as demonstrable undailying the fiscal controversy. To get excited and call one another hard names doesn’t help to find it, but rather retards the discovery. It may be taken for granted that no political party was ever quite so bad as the Free Traders paint the " Restriotioniats,” or conversely as the Protectionists paint the “ Foreign Traders,” If the policy favored by the Protectionists wears an appearance of lestriction, ths reason is, that they think they see a greater good behind, a more real freedom for infant and struggling industries which help to increase the wealth of the nation, On the other hand if the policy favored by the Free Traders seems to give advantages to foreign producers at the expense of our own, it is not on that ground that they advocate it but because they believe that this seeming disadvantage is outweighed by a greater good. It seems tolerably evident, theroioro. that the real truth Hee between the two, and that the first requisite for attaining it is the abandonment of the transparently false assumption that they already possess it, This conclusion finds abundant support from the speeches that were made at the Conference, and which, fortunately, get a fairer field in the columns of the daily press than was accorded them when they ware delivered. For instance Dr Garran opened with an elaborate and impassioned eulogy on Freedom. He assumed that individual freedom was good, and (with an evident belief that this consideration settled the whole question) enquired why industrial freedom should not be as desirable as individual freedom. If the individual ia free to trade where he likes, and beneficial results attend this freedom, whey should not like beneficial results attend a similar liberty on the part of the community ? But this argument is unsatisfactory, in that it leaves out of sight the ooneilerationa which differentiate the community from an individual. The fact that the freedom of the individual is to a certain extent restricted for the general welfare is also ignored by it. The industries by which the community attains vigor end wealth impose responsibilities upon it which find no counterpart in the case of the individual. No man is responsible for the welfare of a whole industry, No state on the other hand can afford to ignore the welfare of its industries any more than a man can afford to ignore the due care of his health. The individual is not free to leave his children to starve or to practise worse acts in order to prevent their existence. It he were thus free, and if it were an expedient thing that he should ba thus free, then this argument from the individual to the State might hold good, but certainly not till then,