THE BOOT INDUSTRY

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 291, 8 December 1937, Page 6

THE BOOT INDUSTRY

TARIFF PROPOSALS DISCUSSED.

(To the Editor.)

The Government intends to apply more screw to the Dubb family, despite the pledge of Mr Savage lhat taxation would nut be increased In the case of the boot trade the effect of increased tariff taxation will be to increase the price of boots and shoe-, and this will reduce the demand for footwear, more l>oot operatives will be sacked and production costs will increase to such an extent that the imported boot will scale the tariff wall. The truth is that the whole industry needs reorganising. The secondary industries, in dependent, on a State Socialist Government to rescue them from the difficulties that their own muddling methods have got them into, ;/ are leauin«r on a rotten reed. If Britir:h-made boots "are excluded by tariff or quota, then the volume of primary exports must be reduced and wholesale unemployment will be the result. The "protected" manufactures are a heavy handicap on the primary industries, from" which we derive the whole of our income. If tftese industries collapse in consequence of strangling taxation, then another flump will engulf X«v Zealand, but that is no concern of'"the professional politicians who occupy the Treasurv benches at present. PHOEXIX.