CIGARETTES AND TOBACCO.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20904, 11 July 1933, Page 10

CIGARETTES AND TOBACCO.

ALTERATION ON DUTIES SOUGHT. EVIDENXE BEFORE TARIFF COMMISSION. (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM..* WELLINGTON, July 10. A request for alterations in the duties on tobacco and cigarettes was made to the Tariff Commission today by Mr R. B. Smith, managing director of Messrs W. D. and H. O. Wills (New Zealand), Limited. Mr Smith argued that the British tariff should be followed as regards the main principle, that there should be no discrimination in taxation between the different forms of manufacture. The British tariff had proved a wonderful revenue producer. Last year in Great Britain £ 1 6s 6d a head had been collected on tobacco, while during the same period in New Zealand the per caput rate had been £ 1 0s Bd. The tax a pound in Great Britain had been 8s 8.44 d, and in the Dominion 7s 2d. He requested that the British tariff should be followed as regards giving adequate protection to local manufacture. In the United Kingdom the manufacturer was more strongly protected than ever the New Zealand industry had been. Mr Smith asked that the degree of protection on the locally-grown leaf should be maintained. It should be possible, he contended, -for a manufacturer to market profitably a good standard size of cigarette at 10 for 6d. The serious weakness in the present tariff was that the rates made this impossible on a profitable basis with adequate advertising. If the principles recommended were accepted, surtax and sales tax would be no longer collected on any leaf cigarettes, or tobacco. The whole of the taxation to be collected on locally-manufactured goods would be obtained at the time the leaf was cleaned for manufacture, and the whole of the taxation on imported manufactured goods would be collected at the time of clearing from bond.