WELLINGTON RAILWAY STATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22063, 20 September 1933, Page 8

WELLINGTON RAILWAY STATION

CONDITION IN SPECIFICATIONS PROTEST BY MANUFACTURERS’ FEDERATION. (Per United Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, September 19. Mr A. E. Mander, general secretary to the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation, makes the following statement concerning the conditions in the specifications for the new Wellington railway station:—“We protested against the grossly unfair conditions specified for Wellington’s new railway station, mainly that imported materials should be exempt from exchange, Customs and sales tax while competing products of our own industries are still subject to all three charges. We protested to the Minister of Finance, who replied that it was the responsibility of the Railways Board, but we have yet to leam when the Railways Board was given power to exempt imported goods from the sales tax and at the same time to declare that New Zealand goods shall be subject to the sales tax as usual. If this power has been given to the board it has surely been done without parliamentary sanction. A protest has been made to the Minister and the general manager of Railways, and both have replied with platitudes and vague assurances which amount to no more than that the matter will bo ‘ Kept steadily in view.’ What the manufacturers and merchants holding stocks in New Zealand require is not merely a vague expression of goodwill but an alteration of the conditions under which they are placed at so great a disadvantage in tendering.”