MACHINE BUT NO OPERATOR

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 38, 13 August 1930, Page 10

MACHINE BUT NO OPERATOR

A special provision in the Customs Amendment Bill empowers the Minister of Customs to remit or reduce the newly-imposed duties if the producers or manufacturers of similar goods in New Zealand raise their prices owing to the increased protection afforded. The provision has, however, only a limited application. It will not apply if the Minister is satisfied that the increased prices are due solely to increased production costs. We would praise this provision if we thought it worth anything, but we do not think it is. It will not operate automatically when prices are increased; it will have to be operated. Somebody will have to investigate the increased production costs and the increased prices and decide whether the latter are justified."" Who is that somebody to be? The Government has ho fact-finding body to inform it what are the production costs and to analyse those costs. Production costs may be increased, because the added protection allows this, and increased in a way that is not justifiable. Unless there is some competent authority to watch the costraising process a price limiting provision, qualified as this one is, must be of little value. It is merely a machine without an operator. It is just another example of the cart-be-fore- the-horse method which the Government is adopting in so much of its legislation; but in this instance there is no horse, only a cart which the Government expects will move forward under its own power. The consumers are in that cart.