PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12726, 1 December 1904, Page 6

PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

[BY TEI EGRAI'H.—OWN COEfiESrONDEXT.] Wellington, Wednesday. ■A question of considerable interest to im- : porters, was raised in a communication received by the council of the' Wellington Chamber of Commerce > to-day,' '■-. from the Canterbury Chamber. Under the Preferential Trad© Act it is necessary to produce a certificate showing, the-,. British origin of imported goods before the importer cat] claim for those goods ' the advantages of the reduced tariff. The suggestion of the % Canterbury Chamber is that instead of demanding a certificate for every invoice, the authorities should bo content with one collating statement, including several invoices. It was agreed to support this proposal. An interesting point in connection with the question of preferential trade was referred to at a meeting of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce yesterday by Mr. I John Beid, who pointed out that for more than 20 years New Zealand had given a big preference to Australian wine as against wine from Portugal, California, or elsewhere. During all these years New Zealand had got nothing in return, and ho thought it was about time that the New Zealand Government approached the Commonwealth Government to see if come New Zealand products could not be admitted to the Commonwealth in exchange. A remission of duty on maize would be a great benefit to New Zealand. When the Commonwealth tariff was framed, a duty of about lOd per bushel was put on maize, .with the result that since the drought broke up tie Commonwealth had scarcely token any of our maize. Limejuice produced in Rarctonga ■' was now completely shut out from Australia, and in consequence the industry had almost come to a standstill, lie thought it unreasonable for New Zealand to--; continue giving this preference .without 1 getting anything in return.