FLOUR FROM AUSTRALIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19767, 15 February 1927, Page 7

FLOUR FROM AUSTRALIA

THE DUMPING DUTY MINISTER’S POWERS EXPLAINED (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 14. The Minister of Customs (rhe Hon. W. Downie Stewart) to-day stated that the Government had been criticised on one hand for imposing any dumping duty on flour, and on rhe other hand for not imposing a sufficiently high dumping dutly. ‘ ‘ The statutory provisions regarding the powers of the Minister of Customs in respect of the dumping duty,” he said, “have been represented as requiring a dumping duty of £1 10s a ton when the Australian domestic credit price is £l2 10s and the f.o.b. export price £ll. The fact has been ignored that although the nominal domestic value is £l2 10s, the actual cash price charged to large domestic purchasers is only £l2 2s 6d, an allowance of 7s 6d per ton being obtainable for prompt payment and large orders. The further 7s 6d which is being allowed in calculating the dumping duty has been already explained as being due to the saving in the handling of export orders, as compared with domestic transactions. So far as the statutory authority for such deduction is concerned, it seems to be quite covered by the terms of Section 11 of the Customs Amendment. Act 1921, which provides that ‘the dumping duty shall be an amount to be determined by the' Minister, not exceeding the difference between the actual selling price of the goods and the current domestic value' of such goods.’ “Briefly, the law expects the Minister, in exercising his powers, to act on equitable and far considerations, and that no dumping duty beyond the amount of any unfair price reduction given for export will be levied. In imposing these duties, which are penal in their nature, the' Minister must necessarily act in accordance with a fair and liberal interpretation of the law. If the Government were to do what is being demanded in Canterbury, it would be' merely trickery and not a fair interpretation of the Customs Act.”