IMPORT FORMALITIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 March 1941, Page 3

IMPORT FORMALITIES

j IRKSOME DELAYS. Personally, I’m getting past caring in trying to make such contribution as a business man can make to “winI ning the war.” We have been urged !to produce, produce, produce! Very good; but how can so when Governmental methods are respon-

sible for delays, and long delays, in the conduct of our business? We want to get on with the job. The speaker was the head of a New Zealand branch of a large British organisation with headquarters and interests elsewhere. The occasion was an interview on the importing situation, according to the “Evening Post.” The speaker said: “Import and exchange control, or restrictions, are not now in question. What is, is the long delay in dealing with the importing of articles or materials, for which licences have been applied but for which decisions on them are dalayed. These delays may be not only of weeks but of months—and that regardless of the urgency with which the goods in question are required. Such goods or articles may be, and sometimes are, for the speeding up or the increase in production—more production, surely, is commonly regarded as a war effort. “The arbitrary basis of 1938 import values may or may not have been a convenient one to adopt at the time, but it has not proved a good basis. It took no cognisance of 1938 having been a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ year for some importers of certain goods. That is to say, of the demand oi' the requirement of a certain article or material; such are the vagaries of markets of supply and demand, be it for nutmegs or washing machines. Even so, the percentages of values of imports were inflexibly fixed at, say, 25, 50, or 75 per cent., whatever it may be. So it might and it did happen that one article could be imported in/ 1940 up to full ordinary requirements of the trade, whereas another article would be available to the extent of but half or a quarter of the needs of todS“But that is not all of this dispiriting trouble; there is the unconscionable delay in getting things done, their slow passage through Government Departments. There must be piles and piles of files of correspondence rising to dizzy heights on de-

r partmental desks, all awaiting decisions. “Look at this”—documents were here produced, going back to October and relating to imports of certain goods for which licences applied lor in October last had not yet been obtained. The goods were wanted urgently; delivery had to be made so that they should arrive in time for the primary producing season. “We have not yet obtained authority to import. It is near the middle of March. The goods have been sold to arrive; they were expected; they were urgently required. They are still awaiting shipment because certain formalities have not yet been completed. NATURE DOES NOT WAIT. “But Nature does not wait on Government Departments; cows continue to yield milk, sheep go on fattening, the grass persists in growing, the seasons run their appointed courses. “As' you will have seen in the correspondence, the Customs refers the matter to the Industries and Commerce Department; the Industries and Commerce Department refers it back to the Customs, so the correspondence oscillates, so the delays drag on; so business correspondence accumulates. t “Business men are ‘fed up. personally believe that the Depaitments mentioned are ‘fed up,’ too, and overwhelmed with work thrust on them in emergency, work to which they are unaccustomed, work calling for more expert business knowledge than , for merely clerical and routine ability. “Meantime, war conditions have placed almost insuperable difficulties on manufacturers, ship owners, exporters, importers, and merchants; markets vary from day to day, fioai -to hour. Delays, if not dangerous, are costly and irksome. But are they inevitable? As to our N e w Zealand end of the business, I think not.”