TO PREVENT BOOTLEGGING

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 23 March 1935, Page 5

TO PREVENT BOOTLEGGING

PREFERENTIAL DUTY REDUCED BRITISH SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. 'United Frees A-ssoclawn. —By Electric Telegraph Copyright). Received 1.45 n.m. to-day. OTTAWA, March 22. The Minister of Finance, the Hon. E. N. Rhodes, in the budget announced that the preference for Australian raisins had been extended to March 31, 1936. The excise tax on spirits has been reduced from seven to four dollars a gallon and the British preferential duty on spirituous liquors has been reduced from eight to five dollars a proof gallon in order to circumvent bootlegging ancl smuggling. Provision is made for an inter-Em-piro extension by Crder-in-Couneil of the most favoured tariff treatment accorded any foreign country, paving the way for the removal of existing anomalies and materially widening the scope of the benefits of the preferential principle. There is a downward revision of 43 items of Customs tariff with four revised upward. The Minister has announced that plans for a general refunding of all Federal, provincial and municipal debts are being considered, with the possibility of establishing a national loan council along the lines of the Australian model.