TBANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 833 



7. The Battle between Free Trade and Protection in Australia. 

 By William Westgarth. 



A sleepless contest, more or less earnest and animated, goes on amongst our 

 Australasian colonies on the merits respectively of free trade and protection. It 

 should be premised that when the Imperial Government conceded constitutional 

 self-government to these colonies, now rather over thirty years ago, they were aU 

 launched upon the general free trade basis of their mother's system. From that 

 they have mostly more or less departed since, but in no case to any material 

 extent excepting in that of Victoria, while her immediate neighbour New South 

 "Wales has continued faithful to fiee trade. As these two colonies, although by 

 no means identical in circumstances, have, one thing with another, a fairly com- 

 pensatory adjustment, the race of progress between them is extremely interesting, 

 and that race wiU probably prove ere long a factor of decisive character in the 

 general question. Although Victoria has not yet plimged very deeply into pro- 

 tection, the extent consisting chiefly in a somewhat general ad valorem duty of 

 25 per cent,, Avith certain lesser rates, and a maximum of 30 per cent, upon wooUen 

 clothing, she would nevertheless appear, as statistics to be here quoted may show, 

 to have so far encumbered her action as to be threatened with the second place in 

 the closely competed race. 



This contest has been very recently accentuated by two very able statements, 

 one on the Victorian side for protection, the other on that of New South Wales 

 for free trade. The first is in a series of articles in the ' Age ' (March- April 

 1887), a Melbourne daily newspaper of leading position and large circulation — over 

 68,000 copies — and which has always been firm to protection principles ; the other 

 is the special reply to these articles on the part of Mr. Pulsford, the secretary to 

 the New South Wales Free Trade Association. There are many expletives and 

 epithets on either side to amuse the reader. Each marshals forth a client brimful 

 of resource and progress. But while New South Wales permits freedom of 

 trading, and Victoria restricts her exchange sphere in favour of certain industries, 

 either advocate is equally siu-e that his own colony is on the best road. 



New South Wales, which is now a century old, has had twice the length of 

 life of Victoria, but beginning in a small way as a convict colony. There was 

 not much comparative attainment in either case imtil in 1851 the great avalanche 

 of gold-production precipitated all Australia into a nation, as the late Mr. Went- 

 worth happily phrased it. The ' Age ' writer claims that as New South Wales is 

 four times larger than Victoria the former had in that respect four times the 

 advantage. But as most of that larger area is of a sterile character, and fit only for 

 pasture, while Victoria is a compact territory abounding in agricultural land, the 

 wider area is, perhaps, for the present at least, rather a disadvantage. There are 

 various pro and con data of this sort, such as that New South Wales has swelled 

 her accounts of late years by larger land sales and more railway-making than 

 Victoria ; while, on the other hand, as being much more largely pastoral, she has 

 more severely suffered during those years by the late severe drought. Altogether 

 there may be a fair comparison by reference to the respective totals of population, 

 revenue, and trade from a starting-point a few years before the gold discovery until 

 the present time, and to the accumulated wealth respectively as the result of their 

 different trading systems. 



In commenting on these data, as given by the ' Age ' writer, Mr. Pulsford points 

 out a variety of errors in regard to New South Wales statistics, and particularly 

 one of so enormous a character as completely to vitiate the ' Age ' writer's chief 

 argument. This is as to accumulated wealth as represented by ratable property in 

 the two colonies, the ' Age ' giving above 114 millions sterling for Victoria, and only 

 56 millions for New South Wales ; while its opponent, from official documents, 

 gives for the latter 197 millions. He confirms this statement by quoting the well- 

 known statist MulhaU, who for 1883 gave property per head in Victoria as 198/., 

 while in New South Wales it was 241/. Towards explaining so great an error in 

 one who seems otherwise both careful and discriminative in his facts there are 

 allusions on either side to the effect that the statistical method of the one colony is, 



1887. 3 H 



