Evening Post. SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1895. A TYPICAL PROTECTIVE DUTY.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 36, 10 August 1895, Page 2

Evening Post. SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1895. A TYPICAL PROTECTIVE DUTY.

If any one desires to learn how the consumer may be bled through a Protective tariff for the interests of a few monopolists, the stndy of the history of the duty on binder twine will afford the information. In response to appeals from some looal twine manufacturers, the Legislature imposed a duty of 15 per cent, ad valorem on imported twine. Practically, this duty does not yield any revenue. Last year the amount was only .£9 l 7s, and it waß paid on about 100 tons ont of about 1000 tons used in the colony. The dnty-paid article was Russian three-ply twine of a superior olaas to the single-ply twine manufactured from phormium tenax and generally used in the colony. On the other 900 tons made from New Zealand fibre the manufacturers colleot the duty for themselves and put it into their pockets without troubling the Customhouse or the Treasury. The duty, in fact, simply enables them to inorease their profits to an exorbitant extent at the cost of the conBurner, tho result being that the New Zealand farmer has to pay 4}d per lb for all hiß twine, while the manufacturers who charge him that price find it pays them to export similar twine to Australia so that it can be sold there at 2jdor 3d per lb. Some New Zealand consumers have been 'cute enough to go to Sydney or Melbourne *o bny their twine instead of purchasing 'jito:n colony, and they have saved ljd F°J ■/> t ior paying the return freight, the JrfjL'lM' -' -a-admitted to New Zealand free on»o n » .ifv bl)fa S o produce of the colony. One Bhipm^t w Bent from Anoklana f o wJwmi thete to a New Zealand dp<^'« Mdwit l>«n>t ever being back t thl^W V- Waihnra was brought S!£f «f^ tS^n? 7 ' lc --J>unedin, at a landed purohaser would have nnj tn " f nMnin similar twine direotfrom a™?KC™ n who have entered into bondr^* 04 ?"™! penalties not to permit the '"M at a lesß prioe in New Zealand. -r t Z-i? thus be seen that the farmers, wii.-^i" the consumers, are seriously hampered ffj, this duty, that it returns no revenue to the ( State, and that its sole effoofc is to put extortionate profits into the manufacturers' pockets. The Tariff Commissioners summed up their enquiries on the subject as follows : — " The statistics show that tho importation of hinder twine has fallen to very small proportions, the great bulk of the twino used in the colony being now of local manufacture. The duty on this artiole is therefore an unimportant item from a tariff point of view, while it has an irritating effect upon agriculturalists, and it is recommended that it be removed." .This recommendation the Colonial Treasurer in his Tariff proposals has absolutely ignored. The doty of IS per cent. ad valorem is to be retained. Thus some £9000 a year is to be extraoted from the pockets of the farmers and put into the pockets of the manufacturers, under pressure of the Tariff, without the slightest benefit to the Treasury. This is a fair and striking example of the operation of a Protective Tariff in aiding and benefiting monopoly.