TARIFF SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 118, 15 November 1945, Page 8

TARIFF SYSTEM

SIMPLIFICATION URGED

An impressive case for the simplification of international tariffs and the removal of obstructive influences in trade between nations is made out in "Trade Barriers," a brochure published by the British Association of Wholesale Woollen Merchants. It describes the effect that the present complicated systems of tariffs, restrictions, and domestic tax loading have on the flow of trade, and makes the point that before the task of clearing or reducing trade barriers can be accomplished there must be clear understanding on everyone's part of the kind of barriers, and the different forms they take,' which each nation has been erecting round itself in the pre-war years. Particular reference is made to the difficulties encountered in the way of freer trade in woollen and worsted cloth, and the author shows the astonishing ramifications that exist in the import control of various countries. In a series of statistical tables the tariffs, taxes, and other restrictions against the import of wool cloth in force in 45 countries are set out. It is shown that some countries distinguish betweei. 28 weight categories of wool cloth, each paying a different duty. What is worse is that the categories are not the same for all countries. In some countries an absurd position has been reached. For instance, in Cuba, the tariff amounts to 42.50 per cent, ad valorem, yet with domestic surcharges not applicable to home-made goods, the effective import tariff is raised to 74.8 per cent. The merchants feel that such differential taxes are wrong, in that they frustrate by indirect means the effects of honest and open negotiations, and they "make nonsense of the high-minded efforts of Governments to spread the benefits of expanding trade by equitable treaties." The brochure is a timely contribution to a badly needed examination of international trade and the implications of hostile tariffs.