TARIFF BARRIERS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 149, 26 June 1931, Page 8

TARIFF BARRIERS

(To the Editor.)

- Sir,—ln your issue of the 22nd June, Mr. Stewart has made a contribution to the vexed question of our present trade relations, and of the tariff question generally. In your editorial of the following evening's "Post," you remarked'the haphazard way by which our present' protective tariff has grown to its huge dimensions, and you stressed the need for a greater observance of the consumers interest. Although Mr. Stewart made a wide reference to his subject, yet he' was very far from being either helpful or hopeful in bis treatment. Addressing as he did a joint meeting of the Economic 'Society and the Institute of Pacific Relations, he evaded the real and only issue in his remark "this. is not the place to discuss the fundamental policies of Free Trade and Protection." ..' ..-•'■.'■''; . Sir, may I ask where Mr. Stewart considers the proper place to discuss such a momentous issue, if not actually at the meeting he. addressed? Is it to Parlial ment or to party caucuses that Mil;,Stewart looks for a settlement ofcthis.great question, or does he think: that. New Zealand is so firmly wedded to Protection that there is no hope'for her to ever depart from it? It is neither. Parliament nor party caucuses that will settle the tariff question, but an alert and educated public opinion.. Already the electorate, or at least a considerable par,t of it, is ripe for a full, frank, and free' inquiry into the blighting effects the protective policy pursued by New Zealand politicians has upon the primary industries and overseas trade. It is "peculiar.-that Mr. Stewart, who should have a wide acquaintance with the fundamentals 'of economics, should be apparently, so ■ solicitous of-the interest of those - industries -that: have crept into existence, and have ■ parasitically endured under the shelter of' protection, and should lose sight of the far greater interest of the community at large in their capacity as consumers. '•■■■■ Why should-anyone suppose that the interests of a.' producer; are of - more importance than the same' individual's interest as a consumer; when the truth, of .course, is entirely 'the reverse?. 'It is surely better that commodities should be cheap and abundant, and within the reach of all, than that by devious and questionable methods their price should be so enhanced as to restrict their use to a few. Mr. Stewart makes a statement: "No mere theoretical demonstration that one country can produce the article _ more cheaply than the other will prevail if in fact the other country can also produce the Same article, 'although under slightly less favourable conditions, and the interests concerned are politically strong enough to secure v protected market." This statement, if true, is only so because in the past New Zealand's public men have lacked tlie courage to lay the facts truly before the whole of the people. They have pandered to sectional interests^ and sought support from a. narrow and biased

section of (.ho community, to the exclusion of the national well-being. The politicians have found it easier to submit to these interests in preference to the more arduous and courageous, plan oC educating public opinion to the truth that Free Trade is immeasurably in the best interests of all, which one would have supposed to have been their principal care.

If Mr. Stewart's outline is even approximately correct. New Zealand's trade is in a critical condition. Our trade with Britain appears eminently satisfactory, but with small thanks, however, to our politicians, of whom quite a number would have ruined that, if they could have had their way. Trade with our sister Dominions, South Africa, Australia, and Canada, has been almost entirely ruined by the childish tit for tat tactics used by our politicians. The situation now is truly Gilbertian, and is simply a burlesque of what our relations should be.—l am, etc., ■ R. G. VARLOW. [It is only fair to Mr. Stewart to say that he has previously discussed Protection quite frankly, and his statement that "this is not the place to discuss the fundamental policies of Free Trade aud Protection" referred to the obvious impossibility of stating those issues fully in an address which dealt with a particular question, New Zealand trade in the Pacific—Ed.] :