WHEAT DUTIES

Feilding Star, Volume 7, Issue 2304, 5 September 1929, Page 5

WHEAT DUTIES

EFFECT OF SLIDING SCALE

SOME MORE EVIDENCE (Per Press Association). Wellington, Sept. 4. Further evidence was. heard to-dav by the Special Committee of the House considering the wheat duties question.. Mr McDonald, who was at one time president off the Board of Trade, out-lined what had been done by the 'Government during the war and said that had it declared in favour of a free trade policy the; wheat• industry in New Zealand would have gone out of existence. If it wap desirable that New Zealand should produce, .sufficient wheat to be independent of importation, and he-agreed that it was then he knew of no. better method of carrying out that policy than the sliding, or fluctuating, scale of duties It effected the object aimed at with a minimum of Government interference. Replying to Mr Forbes, witness did not think that it would be. wise to depend on the Australian markets. There was a (‘distant danger of labour difficulties and these were likely to lead to panic, conditions in New Zealand. In contradistinction, witness pointed out that England could draw on the whole world, for wheat. To the question, as to whether he thought the farmer got the benefit of the. .present protection, the witness replied': “Ye/>, the full wheat grower.” Mr Ruddenklau, of Waimate, stated that under normal conditions the costs of producing wheat in the Dominion were infinitely higher than i.n Australia and land .values and the, tax on wheat growing lands were also much higher. Protection in the form of a bounty, or rsubsidy, did not offer stability or continuity to 1 a. reasonable remunerative selling price, as it did not keep Australian wheat out, and any form of fixed duty lent itself to dumping.