CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 111, 6 November 1935, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

TARIFFS AND SUBSIDIES

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Can "Equity" or other of your numerous correspondents tell if- a protective tariff to an industry means a subsidy to the' industry, and who pays? There are of- course wealthy people having investments in the protected industries of this country, but no objection is taken to the fact.

The control of wireless prevents the air being made hideous ..with advertising; it also acts as a protective tariff to the printing and press industry. The policy of writing-off soldier liabilities to the State, according to the economic needs of each soldier, was well established before I took over the administration. I soon found it impossible to give personal examination to causes, and had to rely urjon the opinion of an individual, or set of individuals, for a final decision." As a result, it said very much for the morale of soldiers in general that they wero not all reduced to being State "lead swingers." Nothing could be more demoralising, as well as unjust, than to write off perhaps the whole of the liabilities of a soldier on one side of a fence and perhaps nothing or less than 10 per cent, off a soldier on the other side of the fence, on exactly the same class of land.

Exports of farm produce as a whole either require subsidising or they do not. All talk of subsidising alone only those in economic need is a long step along the highway towards out-and-out Socialism. Why are not the Democrats even honest towards themselves? —I am, etc.,

A. D. McLEOD. Martinborough, November 4.