8 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
wages and profits had time to bring them back to what they were before the 
disturbance. 
New and improved implements always increase the guantity of wealth 
which can be produced by the labour of the community, and the labourers 
share more or less in this advantage. Their interest is thus seldom opposed 
to the construction of new implements, although they bear the whole of the 
necessary preliminary sacrifice, and even in most cases a great deal more. 
In new countries, however, like New Zealand, the interests of the labourers 
and employers of labour are more often in conflict. If, for instance, aman can 
manufacture cloth for a little less than he can import it from England, it is 
his interest to employ his wealth in erecting buildings and machinery for 
the purpose. He gets thereby a small increase of his income. The labour- 
ing classes suffer for several years an annual loss equal to the entire cost 
of these implements, and derive only a small final benefit, as, by the 
hypothesis, the cost of manufacturing the cloth is only slightly less than 
that of importing it. 
The ery for “protection to native industry,” and consequently for 
increased expenditure on machinery and buildings, is perfectly rational 
on the part of colonial employers of labour. They gain, directly, the higher 
profits, for the sake of which they agitate for protection; and for every 
pound that is spent on implements, which would otherwise have been spent 
in producing direct wealth, they, as a body, get a pound a year out of the 
labourers, unless indeed they curtail their own expenditure, and thus pay 
for their machinery out of savings from their incomes. This they seldom 
do; machinery and buildings are generally made with money borrowed or 
taken out of some other business for the purpose. 
Unfortunately, the labourers are generally so unskilled in political 
economy that they are as eager for protection as the employers. They 
see the employment that is given by a manufacturer, and do not see the 
much greater employment which would have been given by the same wealth 
had it been turned to other uses. | 
If they knew their own interests, instead of wishing to have nothing 
imported which can be manufactured in the colony, they would be loath to 
see any manufactory started which required expensive implements, if the 
article to be made could be imported at a cost not much exceeding that of 
manufacturing it in the colony. We, in New Zealand, are in so happy a 
position that we need not undergo the privation necessary to procure 
expensive machinery. The English are ready to do that for us, and are 
content with a recompense which we, in our more favoured circumstances, 
would consider inadequate. 
