THE AMERICAN TARIFF

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11415, 11 January 1923, Page 4

THE AMERICAN TARIFF

‘NO EFFECT ON OUR TRADE’

WILL ONLY INJURE UNITED STATES PEOPLE. AMERICAN DEMAND FOR WOOL. (Speoial to “New Zealand Times.”) AUCKLAND, January 9. The statement in Wellington last week by the American Consul-General, Mr D. F. Wilbur, that the tariff which the United States lias put on a number of products that New Zealand exports to America would not interfere with our trade, and really amounted to nothing at all, is not regarded so complacently by some New Zealand business men.

One Wellington commercial business man expressed the opinion, in the “New Zealand Times,” that America seemed to be trying to discourage by every means in its power trade, not only from New Zealand hut from Can-

ada, from Britain, and, in a word, from the world at large. That, he said, was the only construction one could put on the new tariff.

ANOTHER OPINION ONLY INJURING THEMSELVES. An Auckland business man, when spoken to on the subject was inclined to the view that the tariff probably reacted more on the Americans themselves than on the outside world. Certainly, .before the tariff operated, that was to say in pre-war days, the Americans bought more wool from ua than they do now. They were competitors then, not only for the best class as. of wool of the lightest sort, but for our wool generally of the coarser grades. And now that they had gone out of competition for these heavier and' coarser wools it meant that they were more difficult to quit. , On the other hand the American demand for clean, good-yielding wools had tended to raise the price of this class of wool. The Americans also took a fair quantity of butter, hides, and tallow from us, but there again, it was hard to say whether the tariff, in which there had been a number of changes of recent years, wae responsible for any radical detriment to our trade in these products to the States. Generally, speaking, he was of opinion that the effect of any tariff wall the United States erected would be felt more by the Americans themselves than by ns, for it made no discrimination, and what they needed of our products, they would buy, tariff or no tariff, if it suited their purpose. We could not honestly complain against a tariff which was raised for the protection of industries and products within their own borders, or, as the Consul-General declared, had been imposed for revenue purpose®.