England's Policy during the last thirty years was of necessity Freetrade, that of New Zealand must be Protection.

Let us go back for a moment and see the condition of England in 1846, about the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws. Before the repeal of the Com Laws, which gave origin to the term Freetrade, England was in the agony of famine and threatened with domestic rebellion, caused by over-population and want of employment. In Ireland in 1845 the potato rot began, and a large proportion of the peasantry actually lived on the potato and the potato alone: in the northern and western provinces of Ireland, whole generations grew up, lived, married, and passed away without ever having tasted meat: they received little or no money as wages; a man worked for a landowner on condition of getting the use of a little scrap of land for himself on which to grow potatoes, to be the sole food of himself and his family. The potato blight therefore caused a famine. In England things were little better, for the ever increasing population could not earn wages, therefore could not buy food. England then had in 1846 a page 3 large population which would work for low wages, and great natural resources awaiting development, and just then, too, steam was coming into use.

What then did England want to feed her population and give it employment, she wanted cheap food and raw material, and Freetrade gave her both: Freetrade had its great value to England from the position and condition of England itself; and its benefit to England can only be reaped as long as that position and condition can be maintained. As long as England can get raw material from new countries, make it up into manufactured goods and sell them cheaper than the new country can produce them, so long will Freetrade be her proper policy. The freetrade in 1846 gave life to the internal trade of the country, by admitting food and raw material duty free, and thereby providing food and work for the people.

Freetrade made England, for a quarter of a century, the manufacturing depôt of the world, because from her position and condition no other nation could compete with her.

It is necessary for England, not only that she should practise freetrade, but her interests demand that all other countries do the same. Freetraders ask us to follow implicitly the practice of England, while our interests are diametrically different. England needs food to feed her abnormally large population, and raw material for them to work up into manufactured goods, and her fiscal system is arranged to bring about these results; New Zealand, on the other hand, wants population to consume its food, and work up its raw material, and Protection is the means to this end. England says, "We have the labour, and we want Colonial raw material and human food for it to operate upon, and we must have freetrade to secure them." New Zealand says, "We have the raw material and the food, and we want population to consume it."

England's food-producing capabilities are far below the requirements of her population, therefore she must have food from other countries. New Zealand has the food and the raw material far above her present requirements, therefore what she wants is population to consume it. Freetrade for England is necessary to enable food and raw material to reach England in the easiest and cheapest manner possible, and the adoption of freetrade by other countries is necessary to enable her goods to reach their markets: because freetrade is good for England with certain requirements, does it follow that it is good for New Zealand with requirements of an exactly opposite nature?