TARIFF INQUIRY

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 17, 14 October 1933, Page 16

TARIFF INQUIRY

Christchurch Evidence

CONCLUSION REACHED By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, October .13. The Customs Tariff Commission concluded the hearing of evidence to-day and will leave for Wellington on Monday evening. ’ „ . Mr. Alvine Norman Turner, director of Turner and Lebrun, sports goods dealers, asked for a revision of the tariff on cartridges and firearms. Referring to shotgun cartridges, he said that the present protective duties were unfair, because the Colonial Ammunition Company could make only 12-gauge cartridges. He’ asked for a reduction in duty on gauges other than 12. He also asked for reduced duties on cartridge cases, which it was practically impossible to import at present owing to the duty, and for a reduction in duties on ball cartridges, saying that the New Zealand company made only .303 cartridges, which could be placed in a separate category. He also suggested lower duties on foreign rifles as Britain did not produce many of the popular sizes of sporting rifle. Mr. Edmund John Bell, chairman of the executive of the Federation of Master Painers’ Association, asked that the duty on white" lead in oil be abolished, as' there was little possibility of this product being prepared in New Zealand. The present duty protected a handful of persons to the disadvantage of an overwhelmingly larger group. Mr. Arthur Ecroyd asked for the maintenance of the present duties on honey. '