THE H.B. TRIBUNE MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1929 THE PRIMAGE DUTY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 219, 2 September 1929, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1929 THE PRIMAGE DUTY

The many and widespread discussions that have been going on with regard to the inequity of the United Government’s land-tax proposals have served to divert attention from consideration of the other main source of the extra revenue which Sir Joseph Ward alleges he must secure in order to balance his accounts for the current financial year. This is, of course, the further primage duty of one per cent, which has been imposed upon all imports into the country. It is however, perhaps worth while to make some little reference to it, if only to remove some false impressions that have no doubt been created with regard to it. Most people, of course, know that this imposition comes on top of a like Imposition already existing, so that the full primage duty affecting all imports, even those otherwise admitted .dutyfile, is now two per cent. Tho Reform Party have stood against this increase, which is going to affect all classes, right down to the smallest wage-earner, quite as solidly as they have against a land-tax that is going to penalise a large number of enterprising farmers who are struggling, in the face of adverse conditions, to make second and third class lands more productive. The United Party have been very busy trying to get folk to believe that in taking this stand the Reform Party are entirely inconsistent, seeing that it was they who were responsible for the earlier imposition. Whether or not it was with knowledge that they were arguing from altogether false premises cannot, of course, be said. But one thing is quite certain, and that is that at least Sir Joseph Ward must have been fully aware of the fact, yet took no steps to correct his followers. The truth is that it was not a Reform Minister of Finance who was in the first instance responsible for the Institution ot the primage duty, but tho game

gentleman as now occupies that position, our present Prime Minister. It was a feature in the Finance Bill of 1915, which Sir Joseph Ward brought down only a few weeks after taking office as Minister of Finance in the war-time National Cabinet. At that juncture there was some fair warrant for levying such a tax, for at the same time the income-tax was increased by a half and the landtax by a third above the rates previously holding. The measure was one dictated by the exigencies of the war, then only at the beginning of its second year, and to en able us to play our part in it, and subsequently, to the same end, income and land taxation was trebled and quadrupled. To-day there is no such emergency as existed fourteen years ago and consequently no warrant, other than easy expediency, for doubling what is an obviously inequitable levy. We are told that this is only a temporary device, but the fact that the original imposition has persisted so long gives little promise of its increase being abolished at any early date. It is a notorious experience the world over that it is very much easier to submit to unjust taxation than it is to get it taken off. That is also what, in all human probability, will be the experience in connection with this fresh primage duty which has been imposed by the United Party, with the aid of the Labour Party, anxious to keep it in office at all costs. An attempt is also being made to persuade us that this tax will not be “passed on’ ’to the consumer in the form of increased prices for tho goods upon which it is levied. This is, of course, rank nonsense, for no one is go’ng to believe that the comparative few direct importers are going to shoulder among them payment of the half-million or so of extra revenue that is to be raised in this way. On import items of substantial value, such, for instance, as motor-vehicles, farm implements dairy machinery, and the like, there will be no difficulty whatever in making the eventual buyer pay. Nor will there be any serious difficulty in the way of the wholesale importer making the retalicr pay on all 'classes of goods the latter may buy for selling over his counter. The retailer, on his part, must, in turn and of necessity, find some way of making his customers pay and at each step in the course of distribution profit will be calculated on the extra cost to the seller. Not only this, but, as a big Wellington retailer has pointed out, where it was difficult to schedule prices on small parcels so as to spread the one-per-cent, duty evenly over all commodities, there will bo no such difficulty in so spreading the two-per-cent. duty. Thus, commodities whose prices to the purchaser in small lots may not have been raised on account of the original primage duty will now go up to meet the doubled duty. And it will be the wage-earner, who buys from day to day or from week to week, that will have to pay the most, proportionately to his income.