IMPORT SCHEDULE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 123, 21 November 1945, Page 4

IMPORT SCHEDULE

DISAPPOINTMENT FELT

""Does not the banning of these lines suggest-that the Government's policy is to bolster uneconomic secondary industries at the expense of the longsuft'eriny public?" asks the United Kingdom Manufacturers' and New Zealand Representatives' Association in a statement on the 1946 import licensing schedule, which, it claims, would cause great disappointment to importers, reverting as it did to the 1939 policy. The lines specifically mentioned, and for which there was no allocation, were: —Cigarettes, toilet preparations, confectionery, figs, dried fruits, cod liver oil emulsion, shirts, nightdresses, perfumes, soups, pickles, sauces, biscuits, tinned fisn, jams, preserves, potted meats, cotton wool, boys' and girls' topcoats, clothing, hosiery,' furs, hats and millinery, boots, shoes, slippers, playing" cards and all fancy goods, wireless sets, gas cookers, toilet compacts, drapery, umbrellas, pram tyres, combs and jewellery, electric light bulbs (up to 200 w.), mops, fire screens, plastic tableware, porcelain baths, tinware, blacklead, grate polish, metal Eolish, carpet sweepers, paint brushes, air brushes, tooth brushes, "A review of the 1946 import licensing schedule reveals the fact that it is the desire of the Government to. forbid the New Zealand housewife to purchase what she wants—and nowhere else in the world does this happen. Even in battle-scarred, finan-cially-embarrassed Britain it is still possible to buy goods from other British countries without inconvenience. The average business man knows of many other restrictions in addition to the ones listed above which really affect the life of the housewife more than her husband. He is prevented from buying many British goods ho wishes to use in his business, and is severely curtailed in others. • This association has always expressed the view that a reasonable protective tariff should be placed upon goods competing with New Zealand manufactures and believes that the local manufacturer who is conscientious and sincere, proud of his work, and producing economically, will agree with this view. "Certain sums of money should be allocated importers to obtain the goods they 'know the public want, stewpans or face powder, bicycles or fur coats, and help to increase the standard of living which is determined by the way a person lives, not by the way he is told to live by a bureaucratic Government."