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Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16855, 8 June 1920, Page 6

That unhappy beast of burden, the average consumer, will no doubt be in- 1 forested to learn, from an Auckland telegram .in this issue, a little more of . \ the methods by which the Customs Be- j partment- manages to add to its load. | i We showed a week or two ago how the ! i Department swells its receipts by -levy-j ■ ing duty on the cost of imported j ] articles at the date of shipment if, rs , often happens .nowadays, that is higher j ] than the invoiced price on the date j ■ when they left the exporter's warehouse j or works. In other instances, when the ! i export price is lower than the current j "homo consumption value," the New: ( Zealand import duty is charged on the' c latter. Now it appears that the New f Zealand Customs do their best to pre- ! 1 vent us from benefiting from tho extra j purchasing power enjoyed by British f buyers in countries such as 'France and , 1 Italy, where the currency is depre- j c ciatcd. For instance, the exchange' rate of the French .franc in London is • to-day about 50 to the £, instead of j c about 25, as was formerly the case, t This means that a Ne\v Zealand im-1 j' porter who purchases in France to-day: 15 3000 francs' worth of goods has to pay j a only £100 sterling for them, instead of. the £200 that they would cost him if ' s . the exchange rate stood at par. e -p This sort of business is not, r.s tho " Controller of Customs sageiy remark a, v "to tho disadvantage of importers." But the' Department- takes good care t | that it shall not benefit consumers any ;; more than can be helped by converting n the invoiced prices of goods bought from " tlyj depreciated currcncy countries into the par rato of exchange—in other, . C words, by requiring an importer to pay,> u on goods which Cost him only £100, the t! duty that would be rightly due on them j t: if they had cost ££00. This undoubted- j , C! ly helps to increase the Customs! J; revenue, but only by, as we hold, un- j .V fairly increasing the cost of living to! *j the consumer. As the latter has quite' p

i enough to carry without the Government piling more on to his back than is needful or morally justifiable, the sooner the system is changed the better 1 it will be for most of us. ' * — Z Incidentally, another piece of evi- j i ! dence on this subject comes to light 'n j an Australian paper, supplementing tho j ' Bradford tweed case, to which we re-; ,J. ferred the other day. Before the! I Necessary Commodities Committee in • Sydney a representative of an import5 1 ing firm asserted that one of the causes s of the greatly increased prices was tho , ; action of the Customs Department in u : making assessments for duty. His firm I had imported material which they _ i bought at 7s Gd per yard, but had been obliged to pay duty on a valuation of 2os per yard, and he further quoted tho case of hats being purchased in Italy at His -Gd which the Customs, for tho purpose of assessing duty, valued at £2" 10s 2d each! The rate cf duty was not mentioned,'but assuming that it was 20 per cent, (and it was probably more), 10s more would have to be paid ' in duty on each hat than would have • been the case if tho duty had been as- | ,; scssed on the actual cost price. Even-' j tually, of course, the ultimate pur- j , i chaser paid that unwarranted extra j j charge. | -| 4 | ■j When wo commented the other day : : on the telegram summarising the public ; 1 accounts for the final quarter of tho financial year 1919-20, we assumed that [ the tables for the full year were avail- , | r.b.'e in the '"Gazette," and ought to j j have been used. It is only fair to the' Press Association to say that when the "Gazette" arrived wo found that the! accounts for the whole year were for j some reason not given. They appear j in the current "Gazette." The Govern- ! ment has been blamed for its delay m j ; printing those fi{jures, but it is strain-! ! ing tho case against tho officials to sug- J | gest, as one of our contemporaries has : ; done, that the publication of only the ; quarter's figures in tho last "Gazette'' I j but one made it impossible to give the I i . ve "r's totals accurately. In that jour- j nal and in others the year's totals work- : ed out from the lour quarterly returns, ; were certainly about £30,000 out, buti :n our own case tho error in each case ! was less than £4—this error being due, of course, to the shillings and pence not j being telegraphed. We gave the | totals as: revenue £26,081,333, and ex-! pendifure £23,781,923. Those who de-1 sire exact figures should add £i to the revenue, as stated above, and £1 to the I expenditure. j ===== |