The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1926. INDUSTRIES AND TARIFF.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 95, 23 April 1926, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1926. INDUSTRIES AND TARIFF.

. 1 I-H...1.1 ....'IB For the cause that lacks assistants, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that toe c-im do.

A claim for greater protection for New Zealand industries is being made by the Canterbury Industrial Association, which asks for an addition of ten per cent to the existing duties. These now stand, in general terms, at twenty per cent for goods of British origin, thirty per cent for foreign countries offering reciprocity, and thirty-five per cent on all other foreign importations. The claim is based on the discrepancy between tbe wages paid to operatives in England and on the Continent and those paid here, a difference which bas resulted in a higher standard of living in the Dominion, which the employers are anxious should continue, The higher standard is undeniable, but the bald statement that the -wages paid by industrialists in New Zealand are eighty per cent higher than the rates in Great Britain is not sufficiently definite to prove that the fifty per cent increage asked for is necegsary to adequately adjust the position, or even that it is sufficient. Generalisation over the whole field of British industry, when imports are limited to specific lines, is not a satisfactory basis for a claim such as is now made. '

Imports into the Dominion have increased during the past year or two at too high a rate, but that does not necessarily involve reduction in local output; the largest. increases were in manufactures not established here. Many of the Dominion's older established industries are prospering, a number of others have come into existence and are showing profitable returns under the present tariff, and a general increase, which will have an' immediate repercussion on the whole community in the form of higher .prices, should be. the subject of careful investigation before adoption.

The complaint that the country is being flooded with German made goods is scarcely part of the campaign for a higher protective tariff, for a few gf the articles Imported from the former enemy country, are manufactured here, and the Minister of Customs has power to put the discriminatory and anti-dumping clause* of the tariff into operation. One pf the questions for investigation in discussing tariff increases is whether the manufacturers of the Dom. inion are maKing the best use of the facilities they already-possess. Is any adequate attempt made to acquaint tap people with the virtues of "the home made supply?" It surely cannot be claimed that. there is. Articles of. a fifst-clasa nature made here are horn to blush unseen simply because nobody

knows anything'about them, and the manufacturer himself is evidently in the conspiracy of silence. That is not the policy of the overseas manufacturer. He makes to sell, and in the process he makes a good deal of noise about the essentiality of 'his article. The echoes reach distant New Zealand through a score of channels, a market is offered which the industrialist loses no time in cultivating, simply because its name is I known the British article gets prefer-! ence over the local. That would not I be the case if effective steps were taken to bring -home to New Zealanders the ' fact that our manufacturers, in the ; quality of their goods, are ready to challenge the best from overseas. If \ they followed , the lead of their more j experienced rivals in this regard it is | quite conceivable that there would be I little need to increase the measure of . protection. General demands can read- 1 ily be stimulated, if not actually created, by efficient methods—the West Indian banana and the Australian and New Zealand apple campaigns in London demonstrated that vory effectively. Manufacturers here have the same opportunity. j The Empire Trade Expansion League, j now in process of formation, will prob- j ably offer a considerable stimulus to home manufacture, but it is no use relying upon a general catch-cry such as "Buy New Zealand Goods." That is very well as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. From the general it is necessary to proceed to the particular, and the real stimulus must come from tlie producer himself. If he is beaten in this field it is time that he asked himself the heart-searching question as to whether his methods in other directions are comparable with those of his trade opponents. In some cases the plea is advanced that mass production abroad results in lower rates than can be quoted here. That may apply to some articles, and in those cases special protective , measures may be necessary, -but all the factors involved should be examined whqn any "tinkering with the tariff" is suggested.