TARIFF CHANGES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 270, 14 October 1932, Page 7

TARIFF CHANGES.

THE NEW SCHEDULE. OPERATING TO-DAY. Following are the alterations which become effective from to-day in the Customs tariff consequent upon the Ottawa Trade Agreement made by resolutions passed by the House of Representatives early this morning: On goods the produce or manufacture of tlie United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, and any other part of the British Dominions, except Canada, the Union of South Africa, tho Irish Free State, Newfoundland, or India, the surtax is removed, and the duties on ready-made apparel, hosiery and confectionery are reduced to 27} per cent. Silk piece goods are made free.

The following duties are now provided for under the general tariff : Ready-made clothing, hosiery, and confectionery, 50 per cent. Silk piece goods, 15 per cent. Cocoa beans, }d per lb. Raw coffee, Id per lb. Rum, 44s per proof gallon. Printing and writing paper in large sheets, unground spices—namely, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, maoe, nutmeg, pepper, vanilla—and also asphalt and bitumen, all 10 per cent. Cigars are now 14s on the British preferential and 16s per lb. on the general tariff. All the above are subject to Section 143 of the Customs Acts, 1913. The primage duty of 1 per cent, and 2 per cent, is abolished on Australian goods imported after yesterday.

MR COATES’S STATEMENT. THE OTTAWA CONFERENCE. MILESTONE IN HISTORY. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 13. In the House to-night, Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, leader of the New Zealand delegation to Ottawa, submitted the following statement relating to the agreement arrived at with Great Britain and other units of the British Empire at the Imperial Economic Conference. It was as follows: The summary of the proceedings of the Ottawa Conference was circulated amongst members last week. I now wish to lay on the table the full text of the agreement between the United Kingdom and New Zealand. It may assist if I make a statement bearing on the conference and the agreement before I move certain resolutions affecting the Customs duties levied on imports. Later on, after ample opportunity for debate has been given. I shall move for the ratification of the agreement, and a Customs Bill, embodying to-night’s resolutions, will come down at an early date. The Ottawa Conference of 1932 marks a milestone in the history of our Empire. No previous colonial or Imperial Conference was charged with issues—with menacing dangers if it should fail, with richer promise should it happily succeed—more vital to the welfare of our peoplo. The worldwide dperession had passed beyond the stage at which it was within the power of any nation by its single-handed efforts to arrest the drift. Co-opera-tion on a wide scale was necessary, not merely to effect recovery, but to prevent further collapse. The countries of the Commonwealth of British Nations looked to Ottawa to set them by by co-operative effort on the high road towards recovery. Nor were the nations within our Empire alone in looking to Ottawa and recognising its significance, Mr Coates added. Other nations, equally in the grip of the depression, were alive to the bearing of the conference on their own welfare. Anything that would hasten recovery in the one-fourth of the world which is included within the Empire would be the most effective way of assisting also the other threefourths. Events prior to the Conference —Great Britain’s steadfast calm in the face of adversity., and her great conversion loan —had strengthened the ability of the British Empire to play its traditional part in leading the world towards recovery. We were not seeking the selfish advancement of our own country or our Empire, regardless of the welfare of the rest of the world. Judged by even the narrow standards of the material gain to the nation pursuing it, such an attitude of isolation is unwise. It brings its own undoing. Rather was it our ideal and our immediate purpose to contribute our part towards general recovery, in which our people would reap their share. I cannot express this sentiment better than by recalling the words of Mr Baldwin, uttered in his opening address to the Conference, Mr Coates continued. Stressing the need for “clearing the channels of trade among ourselves” and for promoting commerce within the Empire, Mr Baldwin noted that “there are two ways in which increased preference can be given—either by lowers ing barriers among ourselves, or by raising them against others. . . We should endeavour,” he said, “to follow the first rather than the second course, for however great our resources, we cannot isolate ourselves

from the world. No nation or group of nations, however wealthy ana populous, can maintain prosperity in a world where depression and impoverishment reign.” The delegations from each and every Dominion at Ottawa subscribed to this ideal. Before referring in detail to our agreement, I desire to emphasise that loyalty to the agreement requires that we should proceed by way of removing barriers to trade—barriers and hindrances which are so largely responsible for common impoverishment in a world abounding with the means of plenty. ASSURED MARKETS. The immediate purpose of the Ottawa Conference, so far as New Zealand was concerned, was to obtain assured markets for our exports, and for these markets wo look mainly to the United Kingdom. First, then we sought continued exemption from the United Kingdom’s 10 per cent, revenue tariff. This exemption was due to expire on November 15 next. Had it not been for the Ottawa Conference, or had we failed to reach an agreement, the tariff would have fallen on our products imported into the United Kingdom after that date, just a month hence. The first achievement of the agrees ment, provided for in article 1, ia that our staple exports are to remain exempt , from the tariff. Moreover, an increased margin of preference, mostly of the order of 15 per oent., is to be granted to many New Zealand exports.

This applies to butter, cheese, apples, pears, eggs, milk products and honey. On a further substantial list of our exports the margin of 10 per cent, preference over foreign products is to be maintained. The 15 per cent, list covers many foodstuffs; the 10 per cent, list covers articles which are the raw materials of British manufacturing industries. DURATION OF PREFERENCES. A highly valuable provision now conceded by the United Kingdom is that these preferences on New Zealand products are for the most part guaranteed to continue for at least five years. A reservation in relation to dairy products (schedule A to the agreement) enables tho United Kingdom, after the expiry of three years, and in the interests of the United Kingdom producers, to impose a duty on Empire products, while maintaining the existing margin of preference over foreign produce, or to introduce a system of quantitative regulation of all supplies. But generally the arrangements concluded at Ottawa, are effective for five years, and thereafter until six months’ notice of renunciation has been given by either partyThe list of New Zealand exports on which preference is guaranteed is set out in the schedules to our agreement, Mr Coates continued. Those schedules are not identical with the products enumerated with the schedules of other Dominions. Our schedules include only those products in which New Zealand is at present interested as an exporter. But in this connection it Is to be added that, if we build up an export trade to the United Kingdom in any line now included in the schedule of another Dominion but not in our own, our position is safeguarded. “We will enjoy the benefit of the preference. We will enjoy what may be called “most-favoured-Dominion treatment.” If we export, for example, tobacco or preserved fruit, we automatically become entitled to tlie preference which is given to any other Dominion.

BRITAIN’S MEAT SUPPLY. RESTRICTION ON FOREIGN EXPORTS. USE OF THE QUOTA, Imports of foreign _ mutton and lamb into Great Britain are to be progressively restricted under the Ottawa five-year agreement by an ultimate minimum of 85 per cent, of the imports for the year ended June 30, 1932. This statement was made by Mr Coates in his report. In regard to meat, he said, our agreement proceeds along new lines, The purpose of the agreed policy is not different from that sought in other products. It is to secure for the Dominions and the Home producer an increased and assured share in the United Kingdom market, at remunerative prices. But the method of approach is different in the case of meat, and as it had been the subject of some misunderstanding I shall refer to it in some detail. I am also able now to announce. certain important figures which, up to the present, have not been disclosed. The outstanding fact to note in connection with the United Kingdom meat market is the vast and abnormal increase in supplies. With the closing or curtailment of important European markets, supplies which they normally absorb have been diverted to the United Kingdom. Particularly has this been true of pig products; indeed, their increase has been sufficient of itself to account for the collapse in meat prices.

DELUGE OF BACON IMPORTS. - The figures of bacon imports for the past two years show the extent of the increase of bacon imports into ain:—1920 8,278,100 cwts. 1931 11,137,800 cwts. Increase ... 2,859,700 cwts. “If wo take the estimate that 201 b. of bacon (boneless meat) is equal to one lamb, the increase in bacon in two years is equal to 16,000,000 carcases of lamb, equal to the whole of tho lamb imported into tire United Kingdom from all sources in 1931. The result was that the meat market was broken by this deluge of bacon imports. New Zealand does not export bacon, but the increase in bacon supplies has broken the market for all meat. “The following figures summarise the estimated imports of meat from all sources into the United Kingdom in the years 1929. 1930, and 1931:

FORCED OFFERING OF SUPPLIES. The figures, showing a steep increase, reflect not the normal course of trade, but the distress and forced offering ol abnormal supplies at prices regardless of the cost ot production. Even at the low prices which have prevailed it has been impossible to absorb the greatly increased volume ol supplies. This condition, with prices below the cost of production, is disastrous to producers, and must react to tho injury of consumers also. To cope with the abnormal conditions just described, abnormal measures are clearly necessary. New Zealand sought, as a long-term measure, a preferential position in the United Kingdom market, to be secured by means of a tariff on foreign supplies, with free entry for the products of the Dominion. To supplement this, as an emergency measure, we suggested the imposition of a quota against foreign supplies. At the present time the meat imports of the United Kingdom have the following origin: Foreign 76 per cent. Empire 24 per cent.

Our contention was that there was ample scope for increasing the Dominion’s share, and this was not disputed. Moreover, the New Zealand proposals were accepted as the basis of the agreed requests advanced on behalf of all the Dominions to the United Kingdom.

UNABLE TO CONCEDE TARIFF. His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom was unable to accede to the request for a tariff on foreign meat. The statement, widely published in New Zealand, that it was prepared to impose such a tariff, and that this was rejected by us, is contrary to fact. At no time were the United Kingdom representatives at Ottawa prepared to contemplate a tariff on meat. "While unable to impose a tariff on foreign meat, the Government of the United Kingdom were prepared, and indeed, in the interests of their own producers they were determined to apply a scheme for the regulation of imports.

The objective of the scheme as expressed in our agreement is, a twofold one; to raise the price of meat to a remunerative level, and to progressively increase the share of the home producer and the Dominions is the United Kingdom market. So far as pig products are concerned—in which New Zealand is interested as a potential exporter and by reason of the bearing of these products on the meat market generally —finality has not been reached. At the moment the whole situation is being surveyed by a commission specially set up for the purpose in the United Kingdom. But we are assured that a substantial reduction will Ire made in imports of foreign bacon supplies and that the Dominions will acquire an increasing share in the United Kingdom market.

Mutton and lamb are the meat products in which New Zealand is most directlv interested at the moment; and as shown by the figures already quoted, recent increases in the supply on the United Kingdom market have exceeded the capacity of the market to absorb them. The competitors of the British Dominions are mainly the South American republics. Their mutton and lamb exports to the United Kingdom, while substantial in volume, do not constitute a large proportion of their total meat exports; they are interested mainly in chilled beef, and in this line our southern Dominions are unable to compete. TERMS OF RESTRICTION. By the agreement made at Ottawa, His’ Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom agree to reduce the imports of foreign mutton and lamb bv the following percentages, as compared with the total for the twelve months ending June 30, 1932: — Quarter Ending. March 31, 1933 By 10 per cent. .June 30, 1933 ~ 15 ~ ~ September 30, 1933 ~ 20 ~ ~ December 31, 1933 >, 25 ~ ~ March 31, 1934 „ 30 „ „ June 30, 1934 ~ 35 ~ ~ And thereafter at not less than 35 per cent, for the period of the Ottawa agreement, that is, for five years in all. Foreign frozen beef is to be subject to the same percentage reductions as those just mentioned. Chilled beef imports from foreign sources are to be regulated so that no increase beyond the quantity for the year ending June 30, 1932, will be permitted. “An alternative method of expressing the agreement in relation to the imports of foreign meat is given as follows. This shows the maximum quantities of foreign meat to be allowed to be imported into the United Kingdom during each quarter of the period January 1, 1933, to June 30, 1934. expressed as percentages of the quantities imported in the corresponding quarters of the twelve months ended June 30, 1932 : 1933. Jan. April July Oot. Mar. Juno. Sep. Doc. p.c. p.c, p.c. p.c. Froz. mutton & lamb 90 85 80 75 Erozbon beof (carcases & boned beef) 90 85 80 75 Chilled beef 100 100 100 100 1934. January April March Juno per cent, per confc, 1 70 65 70 65 100 100 “No reduction is to be imposed on any exports from New Zeuland, We have, however, agreed, as set out in my letter to Mr Baldwin, to give early in each export season a reliable estimate of exports by weight of mutton and lamb. In consultation with the representatives of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, we have given an estimate for the season which is just commencing. The purpose is to assist in orderly marketing of supplies in the United Kingdom, It is manifestly fair as between one Dominion and another

that substantially similar conditions should apply to all, and the Ottawa agreements satisfy this requirement. We are not to exceed the estimate given. It is impossible for anybody mathematically to calculate the precise effect on prices which will result from regulation of supplies. But it can be asspumed that such regulation will tend to raise prices to a remunerative level. The United Kingdom Government are able, in accordance with the agreement, to safeguard the interests of consumers; and the plan adopted will, it is believed, be beneficial to producers without detriment to consumers.

1929. 1930. 1931. Cut. Cut.. Cut. Bcof 11,670,000 11,578,000 11,982,000 Mutton and Lamb — 5,631,000 6,383,000 7,107,000 i’ig products 9,604,000 10,546,000 12,331,000 Totals 26,905,000 28,507,000 31,420,000