WELLINGTON RAILWAY STATION

Evening Star, Issue 21519, 18 September 1933, Page 12

WELLINGTON RAILWAY STATION

PROTEST AGAINST SPECIAL CONDITIONS FURTHER STATEMENT BY MANUFACTURERS' FEDERATION [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, September 18. A special meeting of the resident executive of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation considered to-day the replies by Mr Coates and Mr Mackley, General Manager of Railways, to the federation’s protest against the special conditions attached to the specification for the new Wellington railway station. The .federation, in a statement, describes the reply as evasive, and states, in particular, it cannot understand how Mr Coates could suggest that the Railways Board was the body responsible for exempting from the sales tax goods purchased overseas while insisting on the sales tax being payable on goods purchased in New Zealand. Mr Mackley’s reply is also described as vague, evasive, and altogether unsatisfactory. The federation says it believes Parliament and the public will recognise the gross unfairness of the conditions imposed in placing New Zealand trade and industry at a disadvantage, which it is impossible to overcome. If the course adopted in regard to the railway station was correct, then the federation is entitled to ask why the same course was not followed in connection with the Dunedin Post Office, where all local and imported materials were alike subject to comparison on the basis of exchange, the sales tax and duty being chargeable. *'