FLOUR AND WHEAT DUTY

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 300, 18 December 1931, Page 14

FLOUR AND WHEAT DUTY

Taranaki Deputation Makes Protest. (Special to the "Star.”) NEW PLYMOUTH, December 17. The decision of the Customs Department to increase the duty on wheat and flour imported from Australia by the amount of exchange premium on the f.o.b. price of imports which would be obtainable at the rate current for the time being, irrespective of whether the importer received the benefit of the premium or not, was the subject of a deputation of business men to the Hon R. Masters, Minister of Industries and Commerce. In asking that the decision of the Department be not put into effect, Mr Gordon Fraser said that Australian flour was looked upon by the vast majority of bakers as a necessity for blending purposes, and it was absolutely essential during a period when new season’s wheat was being used by local millers. This Order-in-Council increasing the duty by roughly £1 a ton would, to a large extent, directly nullify the reduction in duty that Parliament had decreed would operate next year. The Hon R. Masters said, in reply, that the sliding scale of duty was not intended by Parliament to be a producer of revenue. It was a protection of the milling and wheat industry of New Zealand. He would put the views expressed by the deputation before the Acting-Minister of Customs, Mr Forbes.