TARIFF INQUIRY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 113, 9 November 1933, Page 12

TARIFF INQUIRY

NO FTJETHER EVIDENCE

EXCEPT IN SPECIAL CASES

Except in special cases no further evidence will be taken by the Tariff' Commission, which concluded its main sittings today. The Commission has been sitting almost continuously sine? June 7, when the inquiry was opened in Wellington, and evidence has been heard also in Auckland, Christchurch, and Duuedin. The original date by which the Commission was required to report to the Government was September 30, but an extension was granted to January 31.

The representations made previously By the Federation of Master Printers of. New Zealand were reaffirmed today by the secretary of the federation, Mr. E. W. Clarkson. He asked that: there should be no alteration to the present Customs tariff by way of (a) increasing duties on any of the basic materials used in the printing and allied industries, and (b) reducing the rate of duty at present imposed on finished or manufactured products of the printing industry, including manufactured stationery, imported into the Dominion.

' Mr. Clarkson said there was nothing but the best of good feeling between the federation and the representatives of the British paper miljs, but the decision of those whom the federation had widely circulated was that it should abide by its original representations.

As the New Zealand representative for Kellogg (Aust.) Pty., Ltd., Mr. J. E. Perkin applied for a reduction to 5 per cent., in the present tariff of 20 per cent, on corn flakes and other cereal preparations. He submitted that even if the duty on the goods, in respect to which the application was made, were abolished entirely, his company would still have a price disadvantage against those cereals of New Zealand manufacture. Maize was not grown in sufficiently large quantities in New Zealand to fulfil satisfactorily logal requirements. In view of the fact that his company was unable to obtain locally-grown products, it did not.hava any intention of commencing manufac" turing iv New Zealand, at the present time. •-..■■

Mr. W. R. Robson, of Levin and Co., Ltd., asked that' concrete1 mixers, on which the British preferential duties are 20 per cent., for the actual mixers and 25 per cent, for the engines, should be admitted free from the United Kingdom, and that the present foreign duty of 45 per cent, should be retained. He considered that the crating and freight charges on imported mixers were sufficient protection in themselves for the New Zealand manufacturers.

Mr. C. G. H. Robinson, representing tho Wolseley Sheep Shearing Co., Ltd., Birmingham, England, asked that the present duty of 25 per cent, be abolished in'regard to oil engines of less than 800 revolutions per niinute. In regard to engines with revolutions of more than 800 'per niinute, Mr. Robinson asked that these remain on the free list as at present.