6 /. E. Le Rossignol and W . D. Stewart 



1879, the tariff was on a purely revenue basis, although the rates 

 were too low to secure a maximum of revenue. Before 1854 the 

 duties were chiefly ad valorem, said to have been unfair to the 

 "conscientious trader.'' The tariff of 1854 consisted of low spe- 

 cific duties on 21 selected articles. In 1873 Sir Julius Vogel 

 again reverted to the ad valorem system and imposed an all- 

 round tariff of 10 per cent. In 1878 Ballance, then treasurer of 

 the Grey government, condemned the ad valorem system, saying 

 that it had resulted in a fall in revenue of £33,788 since 1875, 

 notwithstanding the unprecedented prosperity of the Colony. At 

 that time the tariff comprised 250 headings, of which 98 were 

 specific and the rest ad valorem. Ballance took 20 headings from 

 the latter class and made them specific, at the same time reducing 

 the duty on tea from 6d. to 4d. a pound and on sugar from id. 

 to J /2&. per pound. 



The second period extends from the crisis of 1879 to the year 

 1900 and was dominated by the idea of securing a maximum of 

 revenue while at the same time affording protection to colonial 

 industries.. The reaction from the boom period of the "roaring 

 seventies" had set in, and the statesmanship of the next decade 

 consisted chiefly in trying to make the country pay its way. Suc- 

 cessive ministries vied with each other in seeking fresh sources 

 of taxation to supply the deficiency. The issue of free trade 

 versus protection became the chief political question of the day. 

 Innumerable pamphlets were issued, long debates arose in Par- 

 liament, and the trade unions came into active politics for the 

 first time on this question. 



In 1879 Atkinson raised all articles then standing on the tariff 

 at 10 per cent to 15 per cent. A commission which was set up 

 in 1880 to report on local industries recognized the fact that the 

 tariff was "distinctly though inequitably protective," and recom- 

 mended that great caution should be exercised in making any 

 changes except for purposes of revenue, lest one set of industries 

 should be promoted at the expense of others. The tariff was 

 revised in 1882 and again in 1888, when the duties on a large 

 number of articles were raised from 15 per cent to 20 per cent, 

 and many specific duties were raised proportionately. In 1895 



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