The Hawera Star. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1927. DUTIES ON BUTTER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 1 December 1927, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1927. DUTIES ON BUTTER.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa. Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangat, Meremere. Fraser Road and Ararata

The cabled announcements that both Canada, and Australia are seeking to impose a duty on Now Zealand butter which will make its importation impracticable, does not make cheering reading. The Australian Commonwealth Government is to be asked to place a duty of 6d per pound on our butter, and, | by a strange coincidence, Canada is to be asked to restore the dumping duty on the same product from this country. The message from Canberra stated that the Tariff Board, which has made this recommendation to the 'Commonwealth Government, revealed that last year, when Australia imported £500,000 worth of our butter, the Australian producer required 3/11 per pound, to make his labour .worth while at a time w T hen imported Now Zealand butter could ■bo sold for 1/6. It is now sought therefore to make the importation of New Zealand butter a non-payable proposition until tho price of the Australian commodity has gone over 2/- per pound. Obviously no thought was given to tho consumer in Australia when this recommendation was made; neither has it been made clear that the Tariff Board has stated what is the whole truth of the position in regard to last year’s importations from Now Zealand. The half-million which the Commonwealth importers paid for our produce was an exceptional amount, and the heaviness of the importations was accidental, being the result of underproduction in that country owing to drought. Those figures are for the Australian fiscal year ending in June last, ibut for the previous year Australia paid us only a little over half that amount for the same commodity —an amount which represented a very welcome and desirable volume of trade to us, but not sufficient to warrant the assumption that New Zealand was becoming a serious rival to the Australian dairy farmer in his own country. It might be said that any protest from this country against the imposition of a high duty against one of our primary products would be inconsistent in view of tho recent duty placed upon Australian flour'by New Zealand, but it has to be borne in mind that though New Zealand was seeking to protect the interests of her wheat growers just as Australia is now seeking to protect her dairymen’s, greater equity was shown to all concerned, and that the New Zealand Government did at least make it clear, by the imposition of a sliding scale of charges, that it desired to take into account the productivity of both countries. IVe liave sought to secure the home market to the wheat grower just as long as he can meet the demand, but we have not laid it down that Australian wheat shall be kept out of our country at almost any cost, irrespective of the ability of our growers to produce grain. We have shown that we recognise that there might quite possibly arise a situation which the New Zealand grower could not meet without unduly heavy demands being made upon the consumer in this country, and provision has been made for the Australian to step in and benefit accordingly. The Australian recommendation has yet to pass into law, and it is to bo bo hoped that even though a necessity for protecting the dairy producer

on the other side of the Tasman has to be recognised, our fellow colonials in tho Commonwealth will not go so far as to hedge their shores round w-ith a high protective wall specially aimed at stopping a very valuable outlet for the Neu Zealand market. Why Canadian producers should fear our competition so much as to require the imposition of a dumping duty is a little difficult to understand. Canada, in both the western and maritime provinces, offers us a payable seasonal market. The producers of that country, of course, owe a duty to themselves, but if they are going to close to us a market which we find advantageous only at a time when their production has fallen off, they are going to restrict business for a sister Dominion without profiting greatly themselves. Some people believe that the erection of tariff barriers between the Dominions is not a healthy sign for the future unity of the Empire, and though that is an exaggerated view to take of the outcome of ordinary trading relations between the Dominions under the existing system, it does draw attention to the desirability and the necessity for the component parts of the Empire to bring the ideal of unity and reciprocity down to a workable basis if our hopes are to bo realised.