TARIFF REVISION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21909, 22 March 1933, Page 4

TARIFF REVISION

MR GOODFELLOWS CRITICISM REJOINDER BY MANUFACTURERS. ' (Per United Press Association.) “ WELLINGTON, March 21. Mr F. Campbell, president of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation, to-day issued the following statement: — “ I cannot believe that Mr Goodfellow is serious in charging New Zealand with failure to honour her obligations under the Ottawa agreement. The immediate adjustments in our duties asked for by Great Britain were effected, as Mr Goodfellow knows, within a few ‘weeks of the conference. As regards a general tariff revision, it is common knowledge that the British Trade Commissioner (Mr L. A. Paish) is now in England preparing a case which he is to submit to the commission. Does Mr Goodfellow suggest that the inquiry should commence before the United Kingdom representatives are ready? “Mr Goodfellow’s references to the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation are very wide of the mark. The federation is prepared to help the Government to obtain the real facts about the existing tariff and its effects, and we are in a position to show how very substantial concessions can be made to the United Kingdom without in any way injuring New Zealand industries. At the same time, every reasonable person must agree that it would be madness for New Zealand now to do anything which would injure or destroy her manufacturing industries or check her industrial expansion. “Mr Goodfellow, Mr Poison, and the leaders of the farming industries have allowed our farmers to drift blindly into the disastrous position of a glutted market' and an inferior product, absurdly high land values and interest charges, uneconomic farming methods and inefficient marketing. As a recent statement by the Manufacturers’ Federation pointed out these farm industries are being supported now only by subsidies and concession charged upon the rest of the community to the extent of not less than £12,000,000 per annum. Let Mr Goodfellow, Mr Poison, and other propagandists of the farm industries turn their attention to putting their own house in order. This attack upon the manufacturers is merely a red herring to draw the farmers themselves away from realising how badly their own affairs have been bungled. “ The manufacturers deeply regret that this Country versus Town issue has again and again been raised by the farmers, but probably the farming farmers are not as narrow and selfish as the talking farmers would ‘have us believe.”