The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-06-24
FREE TRADE VERSUS PROTECTION.

neeGed to commend its principles to
our people. The Reciprocity Treaty
gave us free trade with our nearest
great commercial neighbor and nat
ural market, the United States. Our
tariff imposes only light rate Of
import duties upon certain specified
articles of foreign product, other than
products of the United States, but
there is also quite long list of inn
ports free by Code. Practically, there
fore, we have free trade tariff, and
the result has been that our COM
merce has rapidly increased, while
our staple domestic industry has
been cOrrespondingly developed. OF
course all this involves more or less
employment of skilled labor in varied
industries, and the growth and ex-
pansion of our inter-island. trade.
In country like the United States,
of vast area and enormous produc-
ton, it is evident that the tariff
must always remain a source of
debate and agitation. There is
close protective tariff in force for
the avowed purpose of keeping up
the wages of labor, fostering domestic
industries, and insuring manufac-
turers a profit on their investment.
In other words, the machinery of
Government is used to tax the
people to make u profit upon GER
tain lines of business. The ia
justice of this is self-evident, but CAPT
tai stands so strongly entrenched
behind the tariff that the chance
of remedial legislation is remote.
Suffice it to say that in the mat
ter of wages the American tariff
is a failure, and that Congress
has been called upon to intervene and
protect American labor from the
''paupor labor of Europe" brought
over under contract by great mining
and manufacturing firms, and i'm
ported also by many of the railroad
companies for construction work is
the best proof of this.
But the issue of protection versus
| free trade has had fair trial in two
contiguous countries of Australia, in
which for nearly twenty years the two
policies have been tried side by side.
At its summit of prosperity Victoria
adopted protective policy; and New
| South Wales, several years later,
| with q falling revenue and heavy
floating Ssebt,@ adopted a free trade
policy. The result is told by United
States Consul Griffin, at Sydney, in
one of the most instructive papers
ever published by the Washington
Government. The progress of Vic
toria has been arrested. It's popuIa-
ton of producing age has drifted
away from it. During the last twelve
years its trade has only increased z
per cent, while the trade of New
South Wales was doubled in precise
ly the same time, and is increasing
by leaps and bounds The shipping
of New South Wales exceeds that OF
Victoria by 100000 tons. It's bank
ing capital is far greater than that OF
Victoria. The population of New
South Wales is now equal to its
rivals. The wages of labor is higher
in free-trade Sydney than in protec-
tive Melbourne. Living is cheaper
in Melbourne than in Sydney, but it
is much poorer living.
The competition in Melbourne is
terrible. "No one with his eyes
about him." writes one of the most
conservative journalists in Austral-
asia, ''can be in Melbourne many
hours without being struck with the
eager competition to earn even the
smallest sum of money. In the fac
tories the grinding down is something
terrible. In short, Melbourne is
rapidly approaching the condition OF
some of the great Continental cities,
where to use the brutal formula OF
the slave drivers, human flesh is
cheaper than human food, and the
price of goods therefore commands an
inordinate mOdicum of labor. In the
other colonies, this is not so. 1t is
rather the other way. The struggle
for bread being far more keen, labor
| Is IN pOSlLIOn 10 ndhS IdAA ISALho
with capital"
This is the outcome of protective
policy in the great gold-producing
colony of Australia, and among what
was once the most progressive COM
munity in the world outside Chicago
or New York. No other Australian
colony has given way to the dema-
gogue's cry of protection" although
the workingmen of Sydney and Ade-
laide are clamOring for it in the hope
that it would tend to exclude popula-
ton and maintain existing rates of
wages. Were their wish complied
with, they would soon find themselves
under the grinding heel of protected
monopoly, powerless to help them
selves, like their fellows in Victoria.
This should be lesson to Hawaii
ans, and it is calculated to confirm
them in their present enlightened
fiscal policy. No revenue should be
raised in excess of what is needed for
the prudent and economical conduct
of the Government. And public
i economy is best promoted by raising