A VOICE FROM AUSTRALIA.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.'J
Sin,—By the " cables " it is said that you have recanted on Free Trade and advocate a 10 per cent, ad valorem duty and preference to Colonial produce. We farmers and primary producers in Australia are groaning under a terriLly high tariff. We are getting zestive. If the Protectionists hero can only by any means secure some sort o; preference in the British markets, we shall have the high duties kept up here, you may say for all time. Take wheat. No preference less than 10s. a quarter would be of the slightest use to us, and who pays it ? Our fellow-countryman in Britain. We want no preference at all. We
want our Customs Duty brought down to a revenue tariff. The day that Britain adopts Protection will be the beginning of the end. Germany will have achieved her object. The world's capital will be New York, not London. We want more Free Trade, not less. Other nations must prosper as well as ourselves.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Katanning, W.A., February 241h. W. OGDEN.
[The " cables " of which our correspondent speaks must have wholly distorted our views. We advocated a tariff for revenue only, and in no sense whatever for Protection. Under such conditions a preference for the Dominions can be properly supported by Free Traders like ourselves as an acknowledgment of the splendid help accorded us by the Daughter Nations.—En. Spectator.]
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