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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 67

England can sell her goods cheaper than the Colonies, because she is protected by her cheap labour

England can sell her goods cheaper than the Colonies, because she is protected by her cheap labour.

Freetraders will say labour is a free agent. Theoretically and legally of course labour is free: theoretically, a labourer who does not find work in Christchurch can go to Dunedin, or Melbourne, or Nova Scotia, if he considers either of those places more suitable for him; practically, labour is not free: hence, England's labour is protected in the sense that it cannot leave the country; it is restricted in a parallel sense to that in which Protection in the Colonies restricts the importation of English goods, and this restriction is protection to England. The distance of this Colony from England, the severance of home ties occasioned by the departure to a distant Colony, the almost prohibitive cost of passage to the ordinary English labourer or mechanic, the dread and uncertainty of the voyage to a person unaccustomed to travel, the want of information with regard to the circumstances of the Colony, the uncertainty of getting page 7 employment on arrival, with many other causes, put restrictions on emigration which, with regard to her cheap labour, is a source of protection to England. If New Zealand was only fifty or one hundred miles from Bristol or some other English seaport, so that these restrictions to emigration were removed, and absolute freetrade in labour was possible between New Zealand and England, many of the arguments urged in favour of Protection would disappear; but for the reasons given above and others, freetrade for labour is impossible. If labour was a free agent it would be as cheap here as in England (which Heaven forbid), because of the law of supply and demand, and if as cheap here as in England, the human food would be consumed here and the raw material would be worked up and sent to England as manufactured goods; for it would be much less expense to ship the manufactured article, the woollen goods or the boots, than to send wool and hides and bark, which are the goods manufactured with the labour added. As long, therefore, as England is protected by her cheap labour, New Zealand must be protected by a tariff, otherwise it is evident, no industry can be established or make head against the English manufacturer. Through the force of circumstances, England is protected by her cheap labour being secured to her and withheld from us, and in order to be on equal terms our policy should be such as to offer inducements to her people to emigrate to our shores. Colonists in favour of Protection, say, "we will not have English goods at any price," but as the colonists must have goods of the same description, they must be obtained somehow or other, and the result is, the only other way to get them is to produce them on the spot. The fewer goods taken from England the less labour is required by the English manufacturer. The law of supply and demand then comes in, and the non-employment at home and the higher rate of wages in page 8 the Colonies becomes sufficient inducement to overcome the difficulties of distance, &c., and Protection becomes the lever for populating new countries, by shifting the population to the scene of surplus food and raw material. Protection admits that the law of supply and demand is violated when the Colonies prohibit the importation of any goods by legislation; but as it is evident that the Colonies are more likely to sink to a purely agricultural state unless employment is provided by the establishment of industries, it behoves Freetrade to show Protection a better method for the establishment of industries and for obviating this result.