EQUAL TO TEN NOVELS

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20986, 14 October 1933, Page 21

EQUAL TO TEN NOVELS

TARIFF COMMISSION'S ' EVIDENCE LONG TASK KEFOKE 31EMBERS For four months, since June 6 to bo exact, the Tariff Commission has been engaged in heaving evidence in the four main cities of New Zealand. It concluded yesterday the hearing of evidence in Christchurch, where it had sat since September 22, and it will sit again in Wellington on Tuesday next to hear more evidence. For the members of the commission, Dr. G. Craig (chairman), Professor B. E. Murphy, Mr J. B. Gov,-, and Mr G. A. Pascoe, these four months have been strenuous. When they have not actively been engaged in hearing the extraordinary diversified evidence which they have had put before them they have been busy inspecting the factories ol petitioners for alterations in tariffs. There is still a good deal of evidence to be heard in Wellington, and then the commission must settle down to silt the enormous bulk of the testimony it has heard, and bring aown ns recoimneuaauons to tne I uovernment early in tne new year. Wide Itel'ercncc. The order of reierence of the coinmission is necessarily wide. It is empowered to examine the whole strue- | ture of the .Dominion's tariffs, having | regard to the Ottawa agreements, U, the financial, industrial, and economic conditions of the country, to the reasonable requirements of reasonably efficient secondary industries, and to all other relevant consideratiens. The evidence presented, which has mainly been in typewritten form, has been supplemented in almost every case by statements from witnesses made either voluntarily or in answer to questions from the members of the commission. Two stenographers have had their hands full recording all this extra evidence. Anything like an accurate estimate of the actual amount of evidence the commission will be called upon to consider when its hearings have been completed would be impossible to make, but it is safe to say that its members will have to read and study something like a million words.

Already more than 500 cases have been put to the commission. At a conservative estimate each of these eases was presented on five typewritten foolscap sheets—roughly 1500 words. Besides this, each case on an average has been supplemented verbally by approximately another 500 words. Thus the 500 cases already dealt with have amassed evidence which is contained in one million words. Besides this, the commission has been presented with a mass of detailed tables, estimates, and graphs, which will all have to be considered. A Wide Variety. i The variety of subjects which the ! commission has reviewed in Christchurch is surprisingly wide. Evidence has been heard on bungs for beer barrels, and on the sliding scale of wheat duties, which in Christchurch look up a great deal of time and was responsible for more than 120 typewritten foolscap sheets of evidence being handed in, and for thousands of words of evidence given verbally. Between these two subjects a wide miscellany of imports and local productions has boon brought to the notice of the commission. For Canterbury the deliberations on the wheat duties have been perhaps of the most importance, for the industry is centred in the province, but other very important cases already heard have been the effect of tariffs on clothing, on woollen mills, and on boots, all of which are important national industries. In Australia a lariff commission sits practically continuously, but in New Zealand there have been only three since a political commission, which made no report, heard evidence in the 'nineties. These commissions sat in 1921, in 1927, and in 1929. On the findings of the 1921 commission the customs tarilTs and protective duties in ooeration to-day were established. When it leaves Christchurch the commission will still be very far from completing its duties, .although the bulk of the evidence to be submitted Vn:s already been heard. The evidence it has already amassed is equal in volume to 10 modern novels, and before it makes its renort the commission will be required to weigh every word. I