JEKYLL AND HYDE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 130, 6 June 1927, Page 10

JEKYLL AND HYDE

MR. NI'LEOD'S TASK

UNITES INDUSTRY AND GRASS INTERESTS

CONFLICTING VOICES FROM AUSTRALIA "I personally cannot object to the Australian farmer pressing for higher duties on outside products which are in competition with his own, but ....!" This extract from the Hon. A. D. M'Leod's farewell message to Australia, on the subject of tariff reciprocity, implies a good deal more than it expresses. The situation is one full of human as well as economic interest, and it concerns every New Zealander. The main reciprocal agreement between Australia and New Zealand covers 129 items subjected to special treatment. Apart from these 129 items, "all other goods which are produced or manufactured in either Australia or New Zealand are admitted to the other country concerned at British preferential rates of duty." What the Australian manufacturers now want is that New Zealand should give them the advantage of British pro- j fererittal duty not only on those goods already enjoying it, but also on those goods of Australian manufacture which are listed among the 129 special treatment items, and which, as special treatment items, do not' enjoy the advantage of British preferential duty. j From the very nature of the reciprocal agreement now existing, it may be j taken for granted that those items among the 129 that are loaded with more than the ifritish rate of duty are loaded in that way for a particular reason, such reason being the desire of the country levying the duty to protect its own manufacture of the article concerned. Therefore, the desire of Australian manufacturers touches at once on a delicate point in New Zealand's policy. . GRIEVANCE OF AUSTRALIAN FARMER. The reason why such a gesture should come, from manufacturers in Australia is that they have, to a much greater extent than New Zealand manufacturers, reached the export stage. Even so, the Australians are only in the infancy of the export business, and are as far behind America or Britain in this respect as New Zealand manufacturers are behind them. .Australian manufacturers have a fair hold of the Australian market, but during the nine years ended 30th June, 1925, they exported only 5.79 per cent, of their manufacturing output, while the Australian primary producers exported 46.21 per cent, of theirs. So long as the Australian primary producer sells largely abroad under unprotected conditions, while the Australian manufacturer sells almost entirely in his own sheltered home market, the latter will find his position hard to defend against the anti-tariff attacks of the farmer. For that reason, and also for'the ordinary economic need of selling the surplus abroad, tho Australian manufacturer is looking for oversea markets, and one of the nearest of these is New Zealand. But, unfortunately for him, tho Australian farmer—or, at any rate, the dairy farmer—has torn several leaves out of the high tariff book, and is seeking against New Zealand butter, | bacon, and hams duties that, as Mr. M'Leod says, amount to embargoes. Thus the Australian manufacturer and the Australian dairy farmer, looking across the Tasman Sea, observe New Zealand through different spectacles. One sees a market to be opened, tho other sees a rival producer to be Bhut out. And politically the two plans do not coincide. In fact, they clash. Mr. M'Leod might be able to smile at this Australian conflict of secondary, and primary interests, were it not that the same position is developing in New Zealand, and tho cross-tides in, this country hit each other just at the very spot where-Mr. M'Leod himself is trying to combine the positions of Minister of Lauds and Minister of Industries and Commerce. How he will succeed in blending the Jekyll and the Hyde of his dual official personality is one of tho most piquant problems of ilio politics of tho day. AN OBJECT LESSON. His Australian tour has provided 'the Minister with an object-lesson in the rival development of primary and secondary industries, and the tendency of primary producers to be either militant anti-tnriffitcs, or else hard-bargaining sharers of the spoil. Mr. M'Leod has been studying (so has Mr. Poison) the "Paterson Plan," under which the Australian dairy fanner receives from the Australian consumer au export bonus on butter as some small but quito insufficient redress for the wrong dono to the farmer by high-priced tariffed imports and by minimum wages. Mr. M'Leod ig also concerned (and no doubt Mr. Poison is) in the Australian farmer's vigorous efforts to exclude tho New Zealand dairy products, which constitute one avenue towards New Zealand's only economic means of doing something to pay for the goods which the Australian manufacturer wishes to sell in New Zealand. Already the Dominion's purchases are so much larger than her sales, so far as Australia is concerned, that the position seems to be economically abnormal, even without the intervention of new butter, bacon, and ham duties. "While Britain buys from this country much more than she sells, and while Australia sells much more than she buys, how can New Zealand take more of the manufactures that Australian sccondarj^industries, working with pay-ment-for-results methods, arc said to be prepared to export in substitution for British manufactures? A KICK COMING IN BOOTS. The idea of offering in New Zealand better treatment for Australian manufactures is not new. It figured in tho last tariff re-arrangement of 1921-22, when the reciprocity arrangement included New Zealand's reduction of duty on Australian boots and shoes from 45 per cent, to 35 per cent, ad valorem. It is fairly easy to guess what New Zealand boot manufacturers have been telling our in camera Tariff Commission about this concession on Australian boots. It is said that on the Bimutaka divide there is a point where three winds meet. If so, every Wairarapa man should know it- Some similar concourse of air-currents must be whistling over the head of the farmer Parliamentarian who is now committed to guide the political destinies of both primary and secondary industries in a country which presents potentially the same points of economic conflict revealed in Australia. Perhaps it is fortunate that one Minister unites two such divergent purposes. The language used by the Minister of Industries to the Minister of Lands need never be made public.