QUOTA VERSUS TARIFF.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1935, Page 4

QUOTA VERSUS TARIFF.

The advocacy by the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates of a quota on New Zealand dairy« produce entering Britain is in face of the world’s recent experience difficult to understand. It is all,very well to deprecate “continual attempts at the expansion of production where there is only a limited market for profitable consumption,” and to suggest that “it is utterly ruinous for Denmark, New Zealand and Australia to think they can go on turning out more and more butter and forcing the price down.” Is it certahi that restriction of output woud raise prices permanently, or can the Minister point to any success attained by that method? The United States ploughed in a large part of her cotton crops to restrict production, and Brazil immediately produced a great deal more cotton, thereby threatening a large part of the American trade. The problem is.not one qf over production but of under consumption, and the only sane course for a country like New Zealand is to concentrate on developing every possible form of new market, without restricting production. By so doing she may find a rise in prices is slower of achievement but it will not entail the arrest of development entailed by artificial restriction of ouptut. The Dominion must rely on quality and reduced costs of production to increase her sales and enable her to meet other competition'. A tariff on New Zealand produce entering Britain is preferable to a quota for another reason. Coinciding with Mr. Coates’ statement in yesterday’s Daily News was the publication of a letter to the Times by Viscount Bledisloe advocating a vast emigration scheme for settling British people on the land in New Zealand. It is obvious that New Zealand badly needs an increased population on the lines suggested by Viscount Bledisloe, and it is equally as obvious that such an increase must on the whole swell the ranks of the primary producers. How can this young, primary producing country hope to develop to anything like the extent of its true resources if its production is to be restricted by factors such as quotas? Restriction might be a suitable temporary expedient if every country hi the world would be a party to it. But that is almost impossible. In any case it is not the real solution. Increasing consumption is New Zealand’s only hope. It is simply a plain business proposition—a difficult one certainly, and not to be solved by juggling or sleight of hand. It is a case of the survival of the fittest, and New Zealand, with many big advantages and the only handicap her distance from the markets, should be able to compete successfully with the best of her competitors.