"A GENUINE EFFORT."

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 162, 11 July 1934, Page 10

"A GENUINE EFFORT."

TO COMPLY WITH OTTAWA

Mr. A: G. Lunn said he questioned whether the very wide margin of preference given to British goods under the last tariff should have been extended so much in the new. In. the absence of an opportunity to peruse the full report, it seemed to him that the Government appeared to have made a genuine effort to comply with the obligations of the Ottawa agreement. Published reports appeared to be silent as to whether any provision was being made for fuller rights of appeal by aggrieved importers from the decision of the Minister of Customs. He noted that some anomalies had been removed. For example, the old duties on maize, in so far as their incidence varied on the unground or crushed article, rendered the operation of a maize-crushing industry in New Zealand impossible. That had been adjusted; and a number of specific duties, which had become exorbitant in relation to the value of goods, as those values had fallen, had been scaled down, or, as in the case of pickles and jellies, altered to an ad valorem basis. "This is welcomed," said Mr. Lunn, "but it might have been extended further. One would have liked to see the duty on butter —20 per cent of British origin and 45 per cent foreign—abolished. It is not effective, and its presence on our tariff schedule has, in the past, been used as an argument against the freer entry of our products into lands where we have been seeking new markets." Finally, Mr. Lunn said, it must be realised that the Government, under very difficult circumstances, had tried to meet the obligations of the Ottawa pact, with a view to conserving the only market of any value existing, for New Zealand's primary products.