Wheat, and Exchange

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 103, 25 January 1933, Page 11

Wheat, and Exchange

Sir, —Had protection not been given to the wheat industry, New Zealand would have been the dumping ground of surplus stocks from overseas, making it unprofitable for the Dominion farmer to grow wheat. Next year the crop overseas might be a failure, and, with our own farmers not growing wheat, I will leave it to the imagination as to what price we would have to pay. The pity is that other industries were not safeguarded in the same manner, keeping our men in employment, jobs for our boys, and everyone consuming to the fullest'extent. Ft is the consumption side of distribution that is wrong. The consumption of imports carries with it an overhead charge called local industry. To get £ggs, one must have a bird, and the bird must be fed to produce eggs. In the same way to get import-consumers, the Dominion must have local industry, and local industries must be fostered to produce consumers. Your leading article on the wheat situation was hardly fair to the Government in their first attempt to do something really constructive. The principle underlying the Government’s second attempt in pegging the exchange to help the exporting farmer is sound, but the method of carrying it out is decidedly bad. The increase imposed on imports is a direct hit at the British manufacturer, and by hitting him our Government is placing a barrier against the only means Britain has of paying this Dominion for its exports. In my opinion the Mother Country would be quite justified in placing a 15 per cent, tariff on our exports by way of retaliation. The proper way to help the exporter would have been to make a straight-out subsidy to them, the payment to come out of the Consolidated Fund, rfnd the loss made up with a fiduciary issue.—l am, CtC ” RATIONAL.