ORDERS SUSPENDED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23218, 12 December 1938, Page 13

ORDERS SUSPENDED

EFFECT ON IMPOKTEBS

time factor neglected ANXIOUS INQUIRIES RECEIVED Some of the difficulties confronting importers under the schemo of licensing imports were discussed yesterday by nn Auckland indentor. The agent said his office staff faced a month's work preparing the necessary information for the Government. His chief source of complaint was that the scheme took no account of the narrowness of the time margin within which many importers had to work when dealing with offers from overseas. The importer said he sent merchandise to all the 13 ports in New Zealand. The system of requiring application for permits at every port was far too unwieldy and necessitated enormous work for importers, whoso total quantities for New Zealand requirements were known, but whose destinations varied. Instead of making it necessary to apply for a permit at every port, the total New Zealand requirements should be handled at Wellington or at tho port where the importer resided. Danger for New Zealand Neglect of the time factor was suspending business very seriously. An agent for a New Zealand millinery firm might see a good line of women's in London which he could buy cheaply. He would normally cable New Zealand immediately and offer a firm the hats. But how could an order be placed, he asked, when it was impossible to obtain the necessary permit in the time the agent held the option? Such business had to be done within ft matter of hours, not of days. New Zealand was not the only importing country on the map and overseas sellers were not going to wait New Zealand's convenience. They could sell the goods without any trouble to other countries. "The result of this is easy to see," he said. "New Zealand is going to be classed as 'difficult.' As soon as it gets that name it will mean that every other importing country will be offered the goods before we are. We will just have to take our chances. What it will mean is this, that we will have to conduct our business, not on the speculation that we can sell the commodities we import, but on the speculation that we will be able to obtain permits to import them. Guarantees Being Sought

"This will be the only way we can work in the time allowed by the manner in which we conduct our business. We will be offered a shipment of hats, walnuts, raisins or whatever it may be, and we will say wo will take them in tho speculation that we will be able to obtain a licence to import them. If the licence is refused, what are we going to do then? "Another aspect of the licensing system has already cropped up," the importer added, "ahd it is one for which it is extremely difficult to find a ready answer. Overseas cablegrams are arriving from various parts of the world asking New Zealand importers to guarantee payment of shipments whether licences to import them are issued or not. What can we do? The whole foundation of our business is being destroyed."

PLANNED ECONOMY NECESSARY MEASURES MR. J. A. LEE'S CONTENTIONS USE OF THE PUBLIC CREDIT ' 1 The statement that exchange control was absolutely necessary if tin.' Dominion was to have a planned economy was made by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in Charge of Housing, Mr. J. A. Lee, in a speech at the Auckland carpenters' annual reunion. Mr. Lee added that it was not right to consider exchange control as a temporary measure engaged iji to overtake an emergency. The Labour Government aimed at distributing the maximum" income that the production of New Zealand could make possible for the people of New Zealand, but it was impossible to distribute such an income in terms of money if the money income caused a demand for imports in excess of our sterling surplus. It must also be apparent to everyone, he continued, that the sterling surplus of New Zealand was limited as to amount each year, and was the property of the nation, and that a New Zealand economy could not be erected if a few "financial gangsters" could raid that sterling surplus at any moment to the extent that New Zealand would be compelled to default in London, or to accept a hard bargain at the hands of the British moneylender. Exchange control was absolutely essential to a planned economy. Mir. Lee said that surely the Labour way was better than the "hit or miss method of Labour's opponents, who were already howling for a reduction in public works expenditure. The interest receiver sbowld be happy that under Labour there would be no repudiation of the Government's interest obligations, and should stop calling out for an increase to tho so-called market rate of money. The Labour Government had not been returned to pay the so-called market rate of money. There should be absolutely no increase in the interest rate. Labour was returned pledged to use "the people's savings, and the present interest rate was reasonable indeed for a gilt-edged security guaranteed by the nation. The Labour Party's policy, beyond the use of savings voluntarily offered for public investment, Mr. Lee said, called for the maintenance and extension of credit and currency control, until the State was the sole authority for the issue of credit and currency. Public credit should be used to free local bodv and Governmental development from the burden of interest and to lay the foundations of a new dentfree system. .. . , While there was no scarcity of goods or services, to talk in scarcity terms of market rates of money, which meant surrendering to a few people tho right to hold the State to ransom, was altogether wrong. With exchange control and the interest rate, held where it was monev would soon find investment locally in building up New Zealand s industry. , . , , . , Mr. Lee said the time had arrived to reduce the nation's interest bill by' the utilisation of public credit.