CONTROL OF IMPORTS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29682, 28 November 1961, Page 6

CONTROL OF IMPORTS

New Authority Wanted (IV.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Nov. 27. Selective import control was necessary to ensure a balanced economy but the method of control should be removed from the whims of political parties, said the New Zealand Social Credit Political League in a statement after the Dominion council meeting to Wellington at the week-end. “A non-political authority, working in consultation with representatives of the interested parties, should be given the detailed management of import licensing," said the league’s president (Miss M. H. M. King). “The league has always asserted that we must live within our income, but we do not believe, as Labour does, that a Government should tax its way out of its problems, nor should it borrow its way out as the present Government is trying to de. “What is required is a sensible balance, not subjected to the ups and downs of election years, to keep imports within our overseas income to give long-term preference to essential imports and to eliminate obviously superfluous imports, with a fair allocation of rernaming exchange. “Allied with this must be a policy designed to produce more saleable exports and to reduce the demand for imports by the local production, where practicable, of goods which will take the place of imports,” said Mies