THE CUSTOMS BILL.

Northern Advocate, 1 December 1921, Page 4

THE CUSTOMS BILL.

The Customs Bill with which the House of Representatives has been dealing this week is an exceedingly important piece of legislation, since it affects the principles governing the imposition of indirect taxation. The main purpose of the Bill apparently is to give the Dominion a flexible tariff, capable of being adjusted to meet changing conditions of trade. Machinery is provided by moans of which tho tariff may be altered in special cases for the purpose of affording protection to local industry. It is this portion of •the Bill ithat has aroused the strongest opposition in the House, for it is proposed that the Government shall be permitted to alter the tariff a't will by the simple process of gazetting an Order-in-Council. It is true that every Ordcr-in-Council is to be submitted to Parliament for approval, alteration, or-revo-cation, but if the Government made a change in the tariff .in, say, January, Parliament might not have an opportunity of reviewing its action until the following September or October. This means that the Government will have excoptionally great powers; far greater powers, indeed, than any Government before the war would have dreamed of taking upon itself. But in times of abnormality and uncertainty it becamc necessary to authorise the Government to act on Parliament's behalf, and this practice has continued. As a genera) rule it is certainly not desirable 'that the Government should be permitted tc usurp the powers of Parliament, but in this case there is something to be said for the Cabinet's proposal, since it would enable the Government to alter partticular duties in the even-t, of urgent necessity arising without opening up the whole tariff for revision—<a possibility, by the way, tha-t Parlbimont docs not regard with favour. The portion of the 'Customs Bill that deals with dumping contains drastic provisions. One clause provides that where imported goods of a kind produced in Nov. Zealam] are sold to an importer at less tluin tbc "current domestic value"

of such goods, the Minister of Customs inay impose a duty not exceeding "£llc difference between the actual selling price of the goods and the current domestic value." Goods of foreign origin sold in New Zealand at less •than the current domestic value —the value fiied by New Zealand producers and retailers for gooas of the sfime kind produced within the Dominion — might be sold at a fair profit on their cost of production, the foreign manufacturers being able to produce cheaply; tout that fact would not weigh with the Minister. His idea would be to protect the New Zealand .manufacturer and to place the local industry on p:i equality in competition with far more favourably situated foreign industry. This would mean penalising the outsider very severely, and it would possibly involve hardship for the consumer. This is another case of conferring wide powers on the Minister and hoping that he will exercise them with proper discretion. The protection and j fostering of local industry are desir- J v &ble, provided that local industry may reasonably be expected to establish itself on a sound basis, and the proposal to regulate the amount of protection in accordance with the differences in price ibetween local and imported articles certainly appears to offer the jnost efficient form of protection.