QUOTA OR TARIFF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21991, 24 December 1934, Page 8

QUOTA OR TARIFF

The report that Britain's long term policy regarding meat from overseas will mean a tariff on all imports—one penny a pound on foreign and one-halfpenny on Empire products—while unofficial, is extremely interesting. If correct, it means that the proposal which the Dominions urged at Ottawa has now been taken up by the British Government in a modified form. As shown in the official statement Mr. C'oates made to Parliament after his return from Ottawa, New Zealand first made the suggestion of a tariff, and it was adopted as the basis of the combined requests advanced by all the Dominions to the United Kingdom. In that instance, it was asked that Empire meat should be given free entry, the duty applying only to foreign ; though, if the British delegation had countered with a plan for a tariff on all meat, the Dominions being given substantial preference, an agreement might have been reached. Actually the. British representatives rejected the whole proposal. In the words of Mr. Coates' report, "they were unable to accede to the request for a tariff on foreign meat." At that time the crisis in the market was not so acute ; Mr. Walter Elliot was not apparently the power that he is now. Consequently nobody imagined the Dominions having to face the restrictions which are discussed nowadays as a matter of course. If the long range policy of the Government docs substitute a tariff for quantitative restrictions, it will in many ways be a great relief. True, much will depend on the level of the duties and the degree of preference the Dominions are offered. On the other hand, there will not be the same danger of complications and of an ever-increasing range of restriction that quotas inevitably threaten. Further, though protection by tariff might involve a keen fight for the market against intense competition it would not place the dead hand of unyielding restraint on development that rigid quantitative regulation would. Finally. a most important point for New Zealand, under tariffs quality would have its full value in competition, a thing of which it would be impossible to be certain with quotas. These are the features making the reported change of such interest.