PUBLIC OPINION

Northland Age, Volume 27, Issue 41, 26 October 1927, Page 6

PUBLIC OPINION

(To the Editor)

Sir, —The dust is now beginning to settle on the Protective battlefield. The long promised tariff revision is completed and it is well to take stock of the situation.

The Government is in an overwhelming majority over all other parties. No Government in N Z has had such a majority for many a ’ ig yearand it had the power to iitt the burden under which the exporting primary industries have been staggering and wilting. Under the Protective Tariff all the necessities of life, except butter, cheese and meat which are so’d in N Z at London prices, ar J all the commodities required on a farm carry a heavy tax which steadily and irresistibly toice the costs of production upwards and ever upwards. On the other hand the return to the gold standard in Great Britain has caused the general level of prices, including the price we obtain for our butter, cheese, meat etc., to settle op a permanently lower basis.

Every one of the secondary industries in N Z is being “bucket fed” by the Protective Tariffs at the expense of the exporting pri-' mary industries. Few people realize the position into which the Dominion has been allowed to drift. To take three industries as an example—boots and shoes We pay annually in N Z over and above world’s parity, £776, 927.

Clothing— We pay annually in N Z over »tid above world’s parity, £1,693, 260. Woollen goods—

We pay annually in N Z over and above world’s parity, £O2l, 266. Total over and above world’s parity, £2,021,431. The total wages paid in these industries annually in N Z amount to £2,660,346. So that if we pensioned all the workers in these three industries for life on full wages we should save annually £431,087. (These are all official figures.) All the other secondary industries have drifted into a similar position or worse and the burden on the exporting primary producer has become intolerable.

Representations and appeals by means of deputation letters and telegrams to Ministers and Members; lectures, addresses aud speeches to Conferences and public meetings; letters aud articles to the Press; all these things have been done by and at the instance of the Farmers’ Union as well as the submission by the Union of pages of elaborate and unanswerable evidence to the Tariff Revision Commission.

Every individual Member of Parliament has had his attention diawn to the seriousness of the si uation and was supplied with a detailed copy of the evidence submitted to the Tariff Commission by the Union. During the last few weeks a final effort was made by the Union and support was obtained from no less than one hundred and sixty-six public bodies in N.Z. who joined in a last appeal to the Government. What was the result ?

A reduction has been made in the tax on cotton goods. This is to enable the woollen industry to adulterate their goods and to turnout what is known in the t ade as “shoddy.” It will incidentally slightly cheapen table cloths and other cotten goods.

The burden has been left on all other articles of necessity but the gross iniquity of the esse is that considerable additions have been made to the tax on : Foods of all kinds for animals, apparel and ready made colh’ng, hosiery, bags, sacks, hats, tarp tu--1 ns, buk covers, waggon coders, textile piece goods, leather goads, ploughs, discs, harrows, chilis, manure distributors and other

farm machinery, slashers, bill hooks, fern hooks, saddlery, harness, milk and cream bottles, drainage pipes and tiles, pumps, windmills, dairying pumps, gtinding mills, bone crushers, com mills, road graders, saddlers’ ironmongery, carts, drays, waggons, carriage shafts, poles, spokes etc., incubators tor poultry, oower driven churns and other dairying machinery, timber for butter, cheese and fruit boxes sold in N-Z.

There are a multitude of increases on other items which affect the general consumer as well as the farmer but most of the other sections ot the community are able to pass their increased taxation on to the farmer. It is quite impossible to ge! the truth of the case from the city datiies.

Humbug and hypocrisy ma. k all the statements on this subject which have fallen from the lips ot Ministers and Members of the Reform Party.

Is it any wonder that farmers throughout the Dominion are casting their eyes over the political horizon and searching, like Biogenes, for an honest man to lead them out of the wilderness in which they are being left to starve.

I am, etc., H. M. Rushworth. Hon. Sec. Farmers’ Union (8.0.1