TAX ON TEA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume L, Issue 12439, 17 December 1903, Page 8

TAX ON TEA.

To the Editor. Sir, — That one of the local tea packers would take exception to the resolution passed by the New Plymouth Tradesmen's Association is only wnat might be expected. The fact tiuvt the colonial packers have been so anxious to retain the duty on [jacket tea is sufficient evidence of their inability to compete on equal lines with the Ceylon packers. Mr Gil more writes :—": — " If the local packers properly . understood their business their teas should ha\e aroma equal to any Ceylon packet." Are we to infer from this that the local packers do not understand their business ? All tiie members of the Tradesmen's Association who dealt with the matter huve had a wide experience of the tr-a trade, and they expressed their opinions in the resolutions that Are s-o displeasing to the tea packers. As to the assertion that the local tivi packers can. successfully compete with coolie labour, we can only say, 5f s n i»h is the case it is not to the interest of the real workers of the colony to keep an industry alive that pays less than coolie wages. If there is an.y truth in this assertion we are , j'tttified in the suspicion that the local tea packing is carried on by the worst form of sweating. On this question the Premier expressed the opinion that certain forms of cheap child labour were becoming a curse to the colony, as children were kept at work when they should be in school or learning 1 some useful trade, and when they demanded living wages they were fev^nt out on the streets. Tho two quostions receiving most? attention from the meeting of indentors »vere U ) that retaining the 3d per Jb on jiaokot tea was unduly handicapping" th storekeepers who were indenting Uirect, besides imposing a hardship c n the consuming p\iblic. evidently brought about by colonial packers ; ancl (2) that by placing this restriction on packet teas it would tend 10 foster monopolies at the expeuse of the public. On this question Mr Gilmove has nothing to say. but what one would gather from his letter i« that he is more anxious for ;ho public to know that he is a packer of teas than to as«ist in s-ccuring to the public the boon ho i« at present enjoying by having his tctis packed fpro<*t from the grower in Ceylon.— We are, &c,