THE TARIFF

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 296, 12 November 1934, Page 2

THE TARIFF

ACTIVITIES OF MANUFACTURERS

REPORT OF FEDERATION.

Tlie annual report of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation, to be presented at the approaching conference, deals extensively with tariff subjects, “It is ..only twenty months since the establishment of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation in its present form,” the report says. “During this period the manufacturers have been involved in the greatest struggle they have ever known to defend the principle of tariff protection, and to resist the determined efforts of importing and exporting interests to force down the scale of duties even to the point of destroying the manufacturing industries of the Dominion. It has been an enormous undertaking, involving the detailed study and analysis of the business, finances, costings and production of most of the individual manufacturing firms in the Dominion; the preparation of a vast amount of evidence for the Tariff Commission during the eight months of its inquiry ; the working-up of general cases on behalf of some two dozen separate industries; and the preparation of a complete ‘case’ for manufacturing industries was a whole, which was then put before the Tariff Commission, and before the Government, Parliament, the Press, and the public at large. “It has been a hard fight, and a long fight. But when we remember the powerful forces that have been operating on the other side; the fact that this is essentially a farmers’ country; the fact that New Zealand has always had so strong an overseas trade complex; the difficulties and dangers inherent in the political situation ; the overshadowing commitments of the Ottawa Agreement ; the widespread ignorance concerning manufacturing industries and the carefully-fostered prejudice against them—when we recall these conditions under which the long defensive battle was fought, and fought against such odds._ the majority of manufacturers and industrial workers throughout the Dominion must surely be relieved by the result. There is, however—not confined to manufacturers, but expressed even more openly by their opponents—a general recognition of the fact that this result could not have been achieved without the work of the Manufacturers’ Federation.

“The tariff question has, of course, been the chief focal point of the federation’s efforts and activity; but something of even wider and more fundamental importance has been achieved. It is no exaggeration to say that the general economic situation, combined with all the information disseminated by the Manufacturers’ Federation, together with the manufacturers' consistently sound strategy and tactics in a difficult, complicated situation, have already effected a remarkable change in the attitude of Parliament, Press and public towards manufacturing industries. To-day the manufacturing industries of New Zealand are definitely ‘on the map’ ; and the organised industrialists of the Dominion are recognised as a force to be reckoned with.”