COST OF LIVING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 172, 23 July 1930, Page 8

COST OF LIVING.

INCREASE CERTAIN?

CITY BUSINESS VIEW.

PROTECTIVE DUTY CRITICISED.

EFFECTS IN DRAPERY TRADE.

"There is not the slightest doubt that the new duties will increase the cost of living," declared the principal of one of the city's leading drapery firms. "If, however, it is right that the extra money should be paid and that the * drapery trade, should give its quota the general arrangement of the charges is fair enough."

Personally speaking, he believed that local industries previously had all the protection-to which they, were entitled. In round figures the duty on unmade goods was 20 per cent and on apparel 25 per cent. If the 25 per cent duty, plus the freight charges, was not sufficient to afford adequate protection to local manufacturers there was something radically wrong with the local industries somewhere.

Hosiery, he said, would be seriously affected, as it was. certain that the local mills would* never supply anything like, the full quantity -that was bought. There would be a small increase in the quantity of local hosiery sold, but the average shopper would buy the imported article at the increased price. The benefit to the few local manufacturers would not offset the increased price of the imported article.

In I quoting figures of apparel and hosiery imported into New Zealand the Prime Minister had contended that these showed the extent to which the New Zealand manufactured article was displaced by the imported product. That view, however, was not considered fair, as the imported product had not displaced the locally-produced article, for the local manufacturers had never had a monopoly of the trade. "Y,es, the cost of living must go up," reiterated the draper. "If we have to pay higher duty we will have to collect it from the customer, so that in a way we are really only collectors for the Government. But is is we who set the kicks."