LIBERAL PROTEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 221, 18 September 1930, Page 7

LIBERAL PROTEST.

Tory Method of Amending

Tariff,

DISCOURTESY TO EMPIRE.

(Received 1.30 p.m.)

OTTAWA, September 17.

The House of Commons defeated by a majority, of 54 an amendment moved by the former Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, to postpone for six months the Government's measure to amend the Customs Act with respect to the dumping clause.

Mr. Mackenzie King moved, as a protest igainsfc tae Government's tariff proposals, to go into committee on ways andj means, slating that "the House regrets that the Government has seen fit, at a special session called to. deal only with unemployment, to propose great increases in Customs and taxation on a wide range of commodities under circumstances which preclude the House and country from securing adequate information regarding the proposals and preventing Parliament from discussing them. In the opinion of this House these tremendous increases in taxation will not end unemployment, but will inevitably increase the cost of living, and will also increase the cost of production in the primary industries of agriculture, fishing, mining, and lumbering, thus making it more difficult for Canadian producers. These industries have to meet world competition in marketing their products."

Speaking on the tariff proposals, Mr. Mackenzie King said: "I wish to protest in the strongest " language possible against the time at which the amendments to the Customs tariff have been brought down and the circumstances under which they have been introduced." The Government was seeking to expedite business so that its members could go to the Imperial Conference.

Common decency 'and courtesy alone would demand that any changes in the tariff against Empire goods should be left over until after the Imperial Conference.

The House on Wednesday gave the third reading to the Government measure to. amend the Customs Act in respect to the dumping clause.

The dumping duty in the tariff resolutions is 50 per cent. On importations from Australia under the trade pact the special duty will not exceed 15 per cent ad valorem. *

The importation into Canada of goods from Russia, and particularly coal, may be stopped if an amendment to the Customs Act, moved by the Prime Minister, Mr. K. B. Bennett, becomes law. He proposes £o prohibit the' importation of goods from any country that is not a partv to the Treaty of Versailles.