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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 24
Chapter V. Colonial Industry and Free Trade
Chapter V. Colonial Industry and Free Trade.
"Rem, facias rem,
Si possis recte, si non, quocunque modo rem."
"Make money, old boy, conscientiously if you can; if not, never mind, make money."
Colonial Industry is severely damaged by it, for the workmen are not only punished by heavy taxes on food, medicine, and clothes, but foreign manufactures are admitted free.
| Grain and Meats | £1 |
| Grocery | £1 |
| Clothing | £1 |
| Lighting, Oils, &c. | £1 |
| Paper and Rope | £1 |
| Metals and Machinery | £1 |
| Wood (manufactured) | £1 |
| Hardware | £1 |
| Crockery and Glass | £1 |
| Leather Goods and Boots | £1 |
Now, here are ten branches of Trade, and if it be right to protect one trade, it is right to protect all, and so, in order to secure protection, the nation protected has to go into the market with its purchasing power heavily lessened by taxes, and each branch has to pay £9 to its fellows for its protection of £1 to itself. The fault of this demonstration nobody ever touched—it lies in the word "pay;" money passed to foreign nations is "pay;" money circulated in our own is not "pay," it is only exchange.
The other theory is best shown by algebraic formula.
- M is the Manufacturing class
- C is the Food and Clothes growers
- N is the Nation
- F is Free Trade
- P is Protection
- O is Bad Economypage 15
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- X is Good Economy
- R is Riches made in the Nation
- S is Strange Riches
- A is Ratio
Our first formula is—
If M > C then N F=X ∵ C ∠ M ∴ C cannot feed and clothe M. Now, as N has to live by manufacture, and not to live by farming, it would be ruined by Protection. Therefore, converse of first formula, if M > C then N P=O.
Second formula—
But if C > M then N P=X ∵ C > M ∴ C can support M, and C will be ruined by Free Trade; or, converse of second formula, if C > M then N F=O.
Third formula (a corollary)—
C > M requires N P=X ∵ N+R=X, and ∵ N−R=O, while it is clear to everbody that if C > M, and you dare to insist on N F=X that C > M N F=N−R=O is the ruinous result.
Fourth formula (further corollary)—
R makes R is a law, that gives a differential progression; thus, suppose R circulate in N four times at 10 per cent, then C > M NP=X=N+R+4A3, with compound results.
Fifth Formula—
If M > C N F=X ∵ N+E+S ∵ M > C ∴ N+E+S is the only possible condition of X.
Sixth formula is the great one for Now Zealand, being, of course, the converse of fifth formula—
If C > M then N P=X ∵ N M > C must beg food and clothes at the doors of N C > M, and N M > C must feed and clothe on their manufactures, so now the cumulative formula becomes—If C > M then N P=X=N+R+S+ times A times—1+years+interest+compound interest.
So the riddle is solved. Free Trade is not an intrinsic truth, but only a result of conditions. Reverse the conditions, the result is reversed. One man's food is another man's poison, multiply a divisior you divide the quotient, these are principles known and admitted, they have application in Protection and Free Trade. How to convey these thoughts in all their truth to such dark minds as those of the men who constructed the New Zealand Tariff, viz., Sir J. Vogel, Hon. C. C. Bowen, Major Atkinson, Hons. E. W. Stafford, Fox, &c., Sir W. Fitzherbert included? That is the question? The Marquis of Hartington said the other day that the Pacific Colonies and America were taking up the exploded theories of protection, and he expected to see the British artisans presently do the same. Mr. John Bright said that Victoria would find out that Protection was ruinous, except partial to protect Colonial Industry. These men err greatly. The have never weighed the conditions, Instinct is a
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better guide than reason. It teaches the burnt child (who cannot understand combustion) to dread the fire.
The Profanum Vulgus must accept the conclusion. The interests of England and her colonies are diametrically opposite to each other, by virtue of opposing intrinsic fundamental conditions, and my simple formulae, which the world connot upset, prove that New Zealand, Australia, Canada, America, Africa, &c., have interests opposed to Britannia.
Protection of the coast should be by sea. New Zealand has a coast line, that is impossible of land defence. Volunteer torpedo brigades in all the principal ports, and naval guns on snore, suitable for immediate fitting to swift steamers, these are better than land forces. In the estimates the Budget figures are reduced to £100,000, on the assumption of the disbanding of all land forces, and the subtitution of the above means, cheaper and more efficient as they really are.