STORY OF A CASK

Waipa Post, Volume 38, Issue 2270, 19 February 1929, Page 3

STORY OF A CASK

WINE MAKING AND COOJERAGE Australian wines are not selling oversea in the quantity at the prices that their makes consider right and proper. The wine makers receive, of course, a bounty, but, they complain, not as high a bounty as they received a year ago; and they have to carry on their back the Australian cooper. The Argus comments: — "Australian coopers have been very jealous of their industry, and wine makers have had to use Australian casks unless they wished to face the danger of having imported casks declared 'black' by the unions. This has certainly protected the Australian industry, and Australian casks are always used even if the timber from which they are made be imported. There is also a tariff of 30 per cent on British casks and of 45 per cent on foreign made casks. In an effort to reduce the cost of casks, Mr B. W. Bagenal, of W. W. Pownall and Co., ordered here a number of strongly made casks of Australian wood. It was his intention to have these casks returned to him four or five times, and thus save a little of the cost. Mr Bagenal was somewhat surprised to find that the Customs authorities insisted that such casks on reimportation should pay a duty of 45 per cent. They were assessed at the foreign rate of duty, despite the fact that they were made of Australian timber by Australian workmen at Arbitration Court rates of pay. Mr Bagenal had to abandon his plan of re-importing casks.

"When he was returning from London recently Mr Bagenal visited a wine maker in South Africa, and was there shown one of his own Australian made casks, which had been purchased very cheaply in London, and was to be used to ship South African wine to England, where it would compete with that produced in Australia."