THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1933. TARIFFS AND MANUFACTURES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22122, 28 November 1933, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1933. TARIFFS AND MANUFACTURES

The view that was expressed last night by Mr James Hogg, in the capacity of president of the Dunedin Manufacturers’ Association, that only a close co-ordination and understanding between the primary and secondary industries, with a proper recognition of the rights and requirements of each, can advance the prosperity of the Dominion is likely to meet, and should meet, with a large measure of public support. Any effort to divide the country up into two opposing camps, the one occupied by the primary producers and the other by the manufacturers, is to be strongly deprecated. As the Minister of Industries and Commerce said, there is room for the development of the primary and secondary industries side by side, each helping the other as much as possible; or, as Air Downie Stewart put it, a balanced or planned economy should be the aim of the Dominion. Necessarily the rural interests, as the

source from which the country mainly derives its staying power, are of vital importance. Secondary industries, however, which afford employment to nearly 53,000 people and produce goods, even under depressed conditions, to a value in excess of 31 millions per annum—which, Mr Masters says, have a sales value almost equal to the value of the exportable primary produce —have established a place in the economic life of the community that is of considerable significance. But, when Mr Hogg suggests that every one of the manufacturing industries in the Dominion is of economic value, and that any reduction of the protective tariff that is in force would be an act of mistaken policy, it is to be apprehended that he is influenced by the natural bias of a manufacturer. He holds that the article in the Ottawa agreement, under which the Government of the Dominion undertook to reduce the existing protective duties, where necessary, to such a level as would place the United Kingdom producer in the position of a domestic competitor, was inserted, not because the British Government considered that a reduction of the New Zealand tariff was desirable, but because there was an article of this nature in the agreement between the British and Australian Governments. If this argument were sound, the appointment of the Tariff Commission in this country has involved a serious waste of money.

Even although members of the British Government have acknowledged that New Zealand has offered to British manufacturers preferences of a more liberal character than have been granted by other dominions, the view that the article, to which we have referred, in the Ottawa agreement represents merely an elaborate pretence is not one that can be seriously entertained. It is surely reasonable to believe that the article means what it says. It is impossible, indeed, to disbelieve this when it is recalled that Mr Coates, by whom, in company with Mr Downie Stewart, the treaty was negotiated on behalf of New Zealand, described the Ottawa agreement, on his return to the Dominion, as definitely committing this country to a thorough overhaul of its protective tariff duties. “It is difficult to resist the conclusion,” Mr Coates said, “ that there are industries in New Zealand upon which the protection is too high, and that in the case of others the removal of the substantial tariff assistance at present granted would be*an advantage to the whole community.” The crux of the matter is that all the industries of the Dominion which exist under the shelter of the tariff are not necessarily economic industries. Mr Masters said last night that the Government has no desire to make the position any harder for the secondary industries than it is at the present time, and the whole trend of his remarks was strongly sympathetic towards the manufacturer and distinctly scornful of the “propagandists ” for the abolition of protective duties. But he also stated quite plainly and unhesitatingly that industries which are inefficient possess no right to the enjoyment of protection, because they actually constitute a burden upon the community. It is by those concerned in the maintenance of industries of this kind that the effect of the Ottawa undertaking is likely to bo felt. For it is not to be supposed that the Tai'iffi Commission will not subject the tariff to a searching overhaul or that it will not recommend a revision of the* existing protective duties in conformity with the Ottawa agreement. The terms of the article in the agreement which expressed the undertaking on the part of the Government to reduce the existing duties, where this course was shown to be necessary, were actually quoted in the Commission’s order of reference. Whether Parliament will be prepared to adopt such recommendations as the Commission may make and thus, in Mr Hogg’s judgment, “ risk the dislocation of New Zealand industry” is a matter upon which enlightenment will be afforded early next year. The duty of the Tariff Commission is, however, perfectly clear.