PROTECTION AND FREETRADE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20800, 20 August 1929, Page 9

PROTECTION AND FREETRADE.

MANUFACTURERS’ VIEWPOINT. VALUE OF DOMESTIC MARKET. A REPLY TO MR POLSON. * (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, August 19. Trousers are being landed here which cost 3s without duty,” said Mr W. H, P. Barber, the chairman of the Wellington Woollen Manufacturing Company, to-day in his address to the shareholders at the ordinary general meeting of the company. “ What does 25 per cent, on that- do as stopping the importation of substitutes for woollen goods made here? The shibboleth of absolute Freetrade is kept prominent by great importing houses and shipping magnates the whole world over; but it is strange that such a policy is accepted by some as an ideal state when we have the example of Great Britain to the contrary. The 400 years of continuous Protection made her a great Empire; the less than 100 years of Freetrade have endangered that position, and, as the Morning Post said recently, if she neglects to protect herself in a Protectionist world she will shrink from au Empire to an island. “ The brief period of safeguarding what can be done by judicious protection against cheap foreign labour; but even that help granted to British workers and to the Empire is to be discontinued by the new Government. Already the altered policy has resulted in a 10 per cent, reduction in the wages of heavy woollen workers, which has been accepted by them. The disastrous strike in the cotton trade is another result. It is lamentable that in England a wage reduction should take precedence in importance over the application of an equivalent amount as a check on goods made abroad under different standards of living. As a concrete example of safeguarding in England it is on record that to avoid the 33 1-3 per cent, ad valorem tax is the opening by Mr Henry Ford of a motor car factory in-Essex .at which it is expected to employ 15,000 men with a weekly wage of £75,000. As the’ British Labour Party is committed to the repeal of the M‘Kenna Safeguarding Duties, Sir Henry Austin says it will probably lead to the closing of the Austin factory, which employs. 11,000 men, not including the selling staff. “ Freetrade in manufactured goods will not attract capital. That is an indisputable fact, not a theory. America’s tariff, just recently increased, is absolutely ironclad. It costs 80 per cent, and 100 per cent., without freight, to get rugs and blankets respectively into the United States of America, whilst New Zealand’s retort, to that is 40 per cent. “ The excellent propaganda speech of the president of the 'New Zealand Farmers’ Union, delivered recently, was of much interest to us, and I wish to mention some statements made regarding the tariff. It is clear that Mr ■ Poison still holds the long ■ since exploded idea that the cost of an imported article is raised to the consumer by the amount of duty paid on it. That is not correct always, for it has, been demonstrated repeatedly in Australia that the imported prices of farm requisites have been reduced by more than the duty when local production is in competition. Local industry steadies the prices because when it is absent the imported article has a free run. . “ Mr Poison also said that the manufacturing community demands Protection and more Protection, the cost of which is unfairly piled on the farmer. Such a generalisation is unfair, being incorrect. All the New-Zealand manufacturer wants is a fighting chance, and in the woollen textile business that ambition should be supported by the woolgrowers who have all to gain by having their raw materia converted into firstclass marketable goods. The best of all markets is the home one, and land in New cannot be as successfully developed as- it should be unless profitable markets are close to the settlers. The encouragement of manufacturing, with resultant work for a large population, will give an everincreasing market for the producer. It is a fact that wool sold for use in New Zealand mills returns the grower a better price than when bought for shinment, * 1 “ I should be pleased if I could today give an assurance that we shall he able to show as good a balance sheet next year as the one before you, but I do not feel - justified in the circumstances in making such a promise. Business is dull, and it is hard to maintain the output at payable rates. All that I can say is that the company’s affairs are in a sound position.”