CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 143, 14 December 1933, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

EXCESSIVE COSTS

(To the Editor.) Sir,—One again we are instructed by the Minister o£ Finance to stop criticism and go ahead with the job. My ipb is importing goods from British manufacturers, and I should be much obliged if the Minister would tell me how to get on with my job without placing my firm in the hands of a liquidator. The landed cost of imported goods today places them outside the power 'of the retailer to handle profitably. The importer is therefore faced with the position of either importing and selling goods at a loss, or declining to import at all. ' To even the most casual observer it must be evident that only absolute essentials are being imported at the present time. An analysis of today's list o£ overseas ships Dominion-bound shows sixteen: vessels arriving from the Old Country, eight of which are coming out in ballast, and if the position of the plimsol mark on a recent arrival is any criterion, the remaining eight will not be very heavily laden. > ( How long will it be before the Government realises that the present position is an impossible one to maintain, and decides to tackle the problem from the point of view that the costs of Government are excessive, and could be scaled down heavily without loss of efficiency, but with considerable gratification to the taxpayer?—l am, etc., ONE OF MANY.