The Daily News SATURDAY, JULY 27. PURE GOODS AND THE NEW TARIFF.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 27 July 1907, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, JULY 27. PURE GOODS AND THE NEW TARIFF.

What the people eat, drink and wear and otherwise use, sell, buy or exchange, j is of tho greatest possible importance j to.the community. Next in importance to the purity or quality of any *•' h article—its price—is of moment, and the new tariff has a distinct bearing, in conjunotion with the Puro Foods Bill, on the subject. 'l'he Pure Foods Bill is not going to give u« pure food—i-e., uonadulterated goods—but it will make it necessary for the seller to say with what material and to (w» hope) to what extent the article of food, or drink, is adulterable. It savors a little of "stinking fish" to have to remark that despite the heavy porteetive duties oil a part of the goods we eat, drink, wear, sell, buy, etc., many colonial manufacturers are no less squeamish in regard to adulteration than foreign manufacturers. Heavy protective duties on many of the everyday articles are In some instances an open invitation to the manufacturers to reduce the quality of the goods they sell. 11l other words the tan on a foreign article is in these instances so heavy ns to weep it out of Xew Zealand, and the colonial 'manufacturer, who then has the market, may sell what quality he likes. We would not include all manufacturers in this category. For it is a fact that in regard to the manufacture of some lines of goods, thp local manufacturer can •nd does hold his own with the best of outsiders In the point of quality, etc.

In tlx matter of food, the new Bill, if it b#come« an Act, may insist oil the parity of foods or the proper description of adulterated foods. But as far as we can see there will be nothing to prevent a man from telling, for instance, coffee and chicory, if he describes it as tuch, at the same price that the foreign coffee in its pure Btate is sold. The Pure Foods Bill, to be of real use, would seed to contain provisions to prevent this sort of thing. And it would not be difficult to devise clauses to achieve this result. But apart from pure food and impure food, adulteration enters into nearly all Industries in this ramshackle age. There is no doubt that a tremendous quantity of "diluted" goods, in the shape of wearing materials, furniture, budding materials, etc., are sold in Kew Zealand at larger prices than they should command, and to be at all fair to the general salesmen any Bill dealing with adulteration should include wearing apparel, and, generally, the things of everyday use. Many a colonial manufacturer Is under no obligation to supply a good article, although be may. ask the price at which a good article might b» sold. Some time ago a jeweller in one of the cities was complaining to a sympathiser that his business did not pay. "I can assure you," he said, "that very few things X sell retnrn a greater profit than 100 per cent!" He also pointed out that as he was about to manufacture a great deal of his jewellery he would "save from 50 to 15 per cent!" It seems to us that 150 per cent is hardly starvation!

In a case where the Government lifts the tax from any given community it should in fairness to the people see that I the people receive the present. The 'removal of the sugar tax, as for example, amounts to nothing, unless the remission is passed on to the consumers. The complaint of some of the New Zealand manufacturers is thajt they canaot compete with foreigners. Because they can't compete, they expect ihe whole of the people of the colony to be bled for him. Several Xew Zealand industries have been spoon-fed for years iat the expense of the colonics. We may cite the case of the woollen Industry. In 1906 our exchequer beuelited to the extent of £457,667 by the protective tax levied on outside woollen goods. Notwithstanding this protection, the ten woollen mills of the colony employ only 1540 persons! The rank and file of the woollen mill employees are paid particularly low wageß, as. wages go in this country, and, besides, a very large majority of thebe employees arc girls and boys. We will say this about the products of the Xew | Zealand mills that the quality can compare more than favorably with the I world's best, but is the price >vc :ire paying for the maintaining of the industry worth it ally There can only be one answer. One may turn to other industries that are bolstered up at the expense* of the colony and sec the same result.

Compare, say, the woollen manufacturing industry, and others ef the name kind, with some of our natural and primal industries. Our mines produml last year nearly £2,000,000, and employed 10,000 miners; flaxmilln £778,100, with 4076 hands; butter and cheese factories, £1,901,237, with '4076 employees, etc., etc. These industries derive no benefit from the tariff; iq fact, the reTerse Is the case, machinery, etc., in connection with the industries being taxed, and the producers, who have to pay their proportion of the Customs, having to compete with the rest of the world's markets. It would be much better for the country if the 1549 people employed ill the woollen mills were provided with employment in other branches of labor and the capital at present in the mills iunk into more economically sound investments, in the working of land, for example, than' that the colony should have to pay through tha Customs nearly half a million pounds per annum th.at makes, it would teem, the existence of the industry possible. The colony has been paying 100 big a price for the support of some of Its industries, and the wonder to us is [that the people have not been able to I discover the fact before now. Of course, there are industries that are becoming Belf-supporting and others which it is in the interests of the colony to assist, but the high tariff wall erected to benefit those industries that are a direct tax on the people and have no chance of becoming self-supporting should be demolished withiut delay, and legislative meaiistres taken to ensure that when the duties are removed the people will receive the full benefits of the remissions.