LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LIV, Issue 21, 17 March 1933, Page 3

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

COST OF CARTRIDGES.

Sir, —The letter from G.P.J, on the above-named subject is timely. A few days ago I purchased a box of 25 cartridges, at 5/6 per box, and, like your other correspondent, my mind harked back to the time when I had bought them for 6/6 per hundred in Southbridge. About a year ago I had a list showing the various duties upon the different classes of ammunition, and that on cartridges went up to 70 and 75 per cent., possibly more. To this has to be added the freight, insurance, high exchange premium, landing and other charges against imported goods, this natural protection

(except that the exchange is artificial) providing well over 100 per cent., and probably up to 150 per cent, protection altogether to the local manufacturer, This economically undesirable state of affairs can only exist because our method of giving protection is altogether wrong. If an industry is, on national grounds, eligible for protection, then such assistance should be given by direct subsidy from the Consolidated Fund, in which case we would know the exact amount of the cost, and the expenditure would be overhauled by Parliament annually. By this means also the assistance given to an industry on national grounds would be paid for nationally and not merely by the unfortunate section of the community using the commodity protected. Your correspondent mentioned revenue. The duty on cartridges is mainly a protective one, and as such its purpose would be defeated if much revenue were forthcoming. On this point one would think that 10 per cent., which is two shillings in the pound, would be an ample impost to pay the State for revenue purposes. However, if the gun clubs are to make any headway they should attack, not so much the extent of the protection as the method adopted. Plainly, the industry in New Zealand could be closed down, and all the employees pensioned off for life at the equivalent of top wages, and if the ammunition were then admitted on a small revenue duty the country would be thousands of pounds better off annually. As to labour employed, there is, after all, nothing whatever in that plea for if G.P.J, and the undersigned can get our cartridges at 2/- per box instead of 5/6 we will not be putting the other 3/6 under the clock, in a sock, or burying it under the hearth, but will be spending it on something else, which mayhap would employ more labour than am-munition-making. If the amount we are now paying for some of these hothouse protected industries had to come before Parliament annually as a subsidy to be voted upon these in- j dustries would no longer be able to! pursue an economically unjustifiable existence by being permitted, per medium of protective duties, to live by having a special tax levied on consumers of them by Parliament.— 1 Yours, etc. SIMPLE SIMON.