PROTECTIVE TARIFFS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18675, 26 April 1926, Page 5

PROTECTIVE TARIFFS.

TO THE XOTTO& OT "THB PMSS." Sir,—Many thanks for the publicity of your very able leader on Secondary Industries in to-day's "Press." Your contention, however, that cost of transport to New Zealand, plus present import duties, is sufficient to counterbalance the much lower wages obtaining in the competing countries, does not, in iriy opinion, attach sufficient impotence "to the facts that in quite a number of secondary industries wages form a very large proportion of the finished cost; ana so, in those industries, the low wages obtaining in most competing countries present a handicap which the present tariff is insufficient to equalise—hence our request for an increase of at least 10 per cent. I have in mind a New Zealand firm

whose wages bill during four recent yearsjias been 67;61J; 474, cent respectively of their total expenditure. In only two of those years was any profit made, and in none was a dividend possible. You are, no doubt, conversant with the difference between "sheltered industries" such as news-printing, building, etc.—these may need no protection, and yet, to a very considerable degree, set) the standard of wages for the unsheltered trades, which, with wages, possibly somewhat lower than the two mentioned above find the present duties insufficient to enable them to pay those wages, and make a profit. You refer further on to Australian competition a* bearing higher wages cost than New Zealand. Surely yojir information on this point is limited, or perhaps hurriedly obtained. Apart from a much larger local market, allowing mass production on a scale impossible here, I have known many workmen from the "other side" but have yet to meet those whose award rate is lower in this country. There are other points of objection in your leader which can be met and explained, but I have, perhaps trespassed sufficiently upon youi* space for the present. May I close with a cutting from "The Press" of April 11th, which indicates that, owing to importations our boys school find it difficult to obtain openings in skilled trades, the two solitary iiistancew mentioned being both "sheltered trades," i.e., not affected by importations. Not only American, but English industries also were first built up by high tariff.—Yours, etc., F. T. BOYCE. Opawa, April 24th. [The fact that lads seeking apprenticeship to skilled trades cannot easily be placed is a comment, not upon the tariff position, but upon the state of the law relating to apprentices.—Ed. "The Press."]