THE TARIFF PROBLEM.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20898, 4 July 1933, Page 13

THE TARIFF PROBLEM.

TO IBE EDITOR OV THE PJIE33. Sir,—Mr Hutchinson makes an emotional statement about keeping people employed by taxing imports. It keeps a few in unprofitable employment; it lowers the purchasing power of the people and creates unemployment; it keeps a few in work, it also keeps ;i great many more out of jobs. Carpenters, plumbers, painters, seamen, waterside workers, and 'sands of others have to join the flYitfts of the unemployed because of shortage ol imports. If Mr Hutchinson's ideas were correct we should be prosperous now, for there arc fewer imports coming into the country, but instead of being prosperous we are suffering a severe slump. The history of New Zealand proves that a good flow of wealth coming into the country in the form of goods makes us prosperous. Any check to that flow of wealth makes for poverty and unemployment. Mr Hutchinson quoted America. He said America would not allow her trade to be taken away from her. That shows a complete ignorance of the principles of international trade. No country can lose trade by taking goods from other countries; other goods must be sent out in payment for goods received. Each country should import goods it cannot produce economically and export goods, it can produce economically in exchange. The trouble with America and with almost every other country is that there are those who delude the workers into believing that by producing goods at a loss, and by disregarding all the principles of international trade they can create employment; unfortunately for the workers they have partaken of the fools' food that has been served up to by those interested parties, and as a result they have poverty, unemployment, and starvation in almost every country. New Zealand workers are unfortunate in that they have been betrayed , by their Labour party. They have been sold for what support the taxationists are able to give the Labour party. The leaders of the Labour party trust to their knowledge of mob psychology, to delude the workers into giving them their support. Their one idea seems to be to get into office by any means, even by betraying the workers. —Yours, etc., R. July 3, 1933.

July 3, 1933.