DAIRY PRODUCE PREFERENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21108, 16 February 1932, Page 8

DAIRY PRODUCE PREFERENCE.

The most important feature of the British tariff, so far as it concerns New Zealand, is that it imposes a preferential duty of 10 per cent, on foreign dairy produce. The tariff also applies to timber. There has not yet been any announcement of the rules to be applied to Empire dairy produce packed in containers made of foreign timber : whether the container will be exempt because of its contents, whether a duty will be imposed upon the container alone or whether the foreign container will disqualify the contents for free admission. This question is of serious importance to the New Zealand dairying industry, because, with the encouragement of an anomalous interpretation of the tariff law, a large proportion of the butter and cheese exported from New Zealand is packed in foreign timber. The proportion has increased rapidly, following being a summary of importations of timber for butter boxes and cheese crates:—

Butter exported in 1030 amounted to 3.768,000-boxes : timber imported in that year represented about 1,300,000 boxes. It included a small quantity from Canada and a larger quantity from Finland, the bulk of the importations being from Sweden. About half the cheese crate timber comes from Canada, the remainder being drawn from the United States, Sweden and Finland. These timbers arc nominally subject to a duty of ]9s per hundred superficial feet, but the drawback regulations are strained to enable them to be treated as re-exported, and the duty is refunded. Depression overtook the timber industry long before the general development of that condition and it has languished for years, while the dairying industry has been increasing its use of foreign timbers —timbers that are imported in the fully manufactured state, even to the factory brands. The anomaly of packing Empire produce in foreign containers, when suitable materials are available in the Empire, may not be immediately observed in Britain, but it is not likely to be overlooked at Ottawa, where the title of New Zealand butter and cheese in Swedish boxes and American crates to admission free of duty will almost certainly be challenged.

Boxc Su perficial Fr Crates. e<. 926 . . 1 mi 664,856 927 . . 1 ,717. 104.283 923 . . 2 IBHl 622 784,742 929 . . 3 .147, 234 1. 373.007 930 . . 4 .691. 354 1. 774.233