Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING.) SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1911. DUTIES ON FOOD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143574, 12 August 1911, Page 2

Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING.) SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1911. DUTIES ON FOOD.

A Bill has been introduced by Mr. Hogg, member for Masterton, ■whose object is the abolition of duties on flour, bran, pollard, oatmeal, rolled outs, groats, potatoes, starch, farina, butter, and cheese. It will be noticed that he does not propose to exempt wheat and oats, so that apparently his object is to kill the milling industry by exposing it to the competition of Australian and American millers. However, what concerns Taranaki most is the proposal to take the duty off butter and cheese. At present these articles are dutiable to the extent of 20 per cent., equal to about twopence per lb. on butter and a penny on cheese. Xo doubt Taranaki farmers would readily agree to these articles being admitted free provided that the articles they require t 6 imgort ‘—or to purchase, perhaps we should say —are also admitted free. At present, if they want a pair of boots or a suit of clothes,. they, have to pay about fifty per cent, more for them than wouldbe the case if there were no duties, and for dozens of other things they have to pay heavily in order that protection may be given to local industry. Why then should their own particular industry be exposed to the open competition of the whole world? In a great measure it is, because they have to sell their butter and cheese in the open market, competing with Danish, British, ‘Siberian, Argentine, Australian, American, and French. They can and do face that competition successfully, and we do, not doulh that they could face any competition brought against them within the Dominion. But what we want to know is, why the man on the land should be singled out for exposure todbe cold blasts of foreign competition while the man in the towns has a high fence erected round his industry in order to protect it from similar competition. If the farmers concede the removal of import duties on the articles they produce the next move will he to impose an export duty. They will be .denied the right, by such men as Mr. Hogg, to sell *their products to the highest bidder. They will be compelled to sell within the Dominion at a lower price than they can obtain outside, and at the same time they will be further exposed to competition with the products of other countries. Australia imposes a duty of threepence per lb. on butter and cheese from Xew Zealand, which closes that market, and Mr. Hogg would deny our dairymen the right to retaliate even to the extent of twopence on blitter and a penny on cheese. The same applies to cereals; the Australian duties are generally very much heavier than those imposed by Xew Zealand. AVithout labouring the question, we will put the matter thus, that it Mr. Hogg will move to reduce all duties, and to impose a purely revenue tariff, we ■will support him. But so long as the farmer is compelled to pay “through the nose” for many of his requirements, in order to support local industry, he is surely entitled to the nominal—lor it is nominal protection Which the tariff now affords him in his owii industry.