THE WHEAT DUTIES.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18697, 25 July 1932, Page 9

THE WHEAT DUTIES.

» (To the Editor.) Sir,—While approving of your protest against the latest iniquity in respect of importation of wheat, one j may differ in regard to the remedy proposed, namely, to grow wheat in the North Island. Although wheat has been grown here in a general way, and could be produced again, the -fact remains that the land in the north Is not wheat-growing soil, nor have we the same drying winds which arc a factor in ripening grain. Such a proposal is quite contrary to the sound policy that each portion of territory should concentrate upon the production of those things for ’which it is suited, In soil, climate, of the people, and many other factors. Granted that the form and amount ’of wheat and flour duties are obnoxious and excessive, it must yet be conceded that, while there are duties upon necessities in general, thus keeping up costs of production, the wheatgrowing and flourmilling interests aro entitled to .similar protection, though not the super-protection now enjoyed. The wheat, and flour duties are part and parcel of the whole vicious system of protection and a fiscal policy which depends upon indirect taxation for revenue. The real remedy is not a reorientation of industry in the North, opposed to all principles of rationalisation, but a sweeping away of an economically rotten system, which may be done by electing to Parliament candidates who are themselves, along with the party or parties they belong to, opposed to customs tariffs for protective purposes, and for revenue purposes too, except perhaps In regard to luxuries. But the day of such basic reform has been put off , Indefinitely by newspapers which protest against wheat and flour duties, and at election-time fight for the very parties responsible for their intro | duction, and pledged to their mainten- : ance, namely, the United, Reform (Coalition) and Labour parties. Scarcely a day passes - but what our cable news conveys to us the pronouncements of leading men of the world that tariffs are largely responsible for our present sad stale, and that, no matter what reforms may be effected in respect of reparations, war debts, currency and credit changes, trade can never recover while tariffs ,and their .illegitimate offspring, quotas, are "permitted to strangle Intercourse between the nations commercially. And yet electors vote for men and parties pledged to maintain this stranglehold, and turn down candidates who, with their party, are pledged in printed platform and the spoken word to at once materially reduce and gradually abolish all these duties. Even the price we are paying will be cheap in the long run if it teaches electors to vote for candidates pledged—with their party—to the remedial principles, and ndt be side-tracked by the usual bogeys trotted out to scare them, like some mumbo-jumbo used to paralyse the moral courage and thinking capacity of unlettered savages.—l am, etc., t. e. mcmillan. Matamata, July 22, 1932.