The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1965. Bicycles

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30769, 5 June 1965, Page 14

The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1965. Bicycles

The fears of the bicycle retailers that the Government intends to give Morrisons Industries, Ltd., a monopoly of the New Zealand market appear to be well founded. When Morrisons Industries first proposed to make bicycles locally, the company claimed it would be able to make a bicycle up to overseas standards at a comparable price. The company, quite properly, sought the protection of a tariff: but retail traders were assured the new industry would not be protected by import restrictions. The Tariff and Development Board heard evidence from Morrisons Industries and from the Retail Cycle Traders’ Association, and recommended a British Preferential tariff of 25 per cent on bicycles, which had formerly been allowed in free. This is a generous measure of protection: an industry which could not compete with imports saddled with so substantial an impost would be of dubious value to the economy. The board’s finding that the New Zealand-made bicycles were of satisfactory quality and were being produced to the specification approved by Raleigh Industries, Ltd., has since been contradicted by a trade spokesman. Be that as it may, the best regulator of the quality of locally-made goods is competition from imports. This safeguard is in jeopardy, for cycle imports have been placed in the “C ” category (“individual applications, on their merits”) in the 1965-66 import licensing schedule. When the Minister of Customs (Mr Shelton) released the tariff board's report this week, he said the Government would confer soon with distributors and the manufacturer, “ and an announcement about *• further import licence provision to be made during *• the 1965-66 import licensing period would follow ”. Mr Shelton also said a decision on the action proposed on the board’s report would be issued. The Minister can therefore claim, at the outset of this conference, that the Government has not prejudged either the volume of competitive imports or the rate of duty to be levied on them. In principle, this may be true; in practice, the transfer of an item from category “ A ” to category “ C ” is all too frequently the first step towards preserving for the local manufacturer a monopoly of the local market. The representatives of the cycle trade who meet the Minister should ask for nothing less than the reinstatement of cycle imports in the “ A ” category: conceding to Morrisons Industries the full 25 per cent tariff recommended by the board would be a small price to pay for this.

The North Canterbury Cycle Traders’ Association, whose members have the biggest bicycle trade in the country, have a special responsibility in these negotiations. They are in the best position to measure the extra costs to the trade and to their, customers, and also to give evidence of public; interest in this industry. The cycling public have no trade association to speak for them. The developments in the cvcle industry demonstrate the need for a truly independent consumers’ organisation, prepared to defend consumers’ interests before trade interests, Cabinet Ministers, and government departments. Freedom Of The Air The withdrawal of the ban on Professor E. W. Herd’s broadcast talk is commendable. As the correspondence columns of this newspaper have shown in the last few weeks, public interest in Vietnam has now been thoroughly aroused. It is not the function of the Broadcasting Corporation to stifle public discussion of important issues; that is more likely to strengthen than to weaken the elements of opposition to official policy. ——————