THE TARIFF PROBLEM.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19140, 25 October 1927, Page 12

THE TARIFF PROBLEM.

TO THB EDITOB OT THE PBIS3. £i r> --I was greatly surprised to read some' of the statements made in your editorial this morning under tlie heading "Common-Sense Economics" regarding the.use of local materials and the question of money being expended outside of New Zealand. You state: ".{ person does not make his own. boots because he can make more than their equivalent in value while someone else is making them." That is quite correct so far as it goes, but it is by no means a complete answer to the statement that local goods should be purchased in preference to imported ones. In taking the simile quoted, you are comparing an individual with a whole section of the community, although it is impossible to ascertain from your article whether you refer only to that section engaged in manufacturing tar, asphalt,, etc., or to the whole group of people engaged in "protected" industries of all kinds. If the former be intended, your statement may be interpreted to read: "New Zealanders should not buy locally-made tar, asphalt, etc., if the people engaged in the manufacture of these articles can be more profitably employed doing something else whilst the tar and asphalt nre manufactured in another country." That statement also may or may not, be true, but there is nothing whatever in vour article to prove that it is, and I would be interested to know what gives you that opinion. If we go further, and presume that your reference is to all protected industries, I feel sure the statement must convict itself. The reference to be tajien from this reading of your article is that those engaged in "protected' industries could be more profitably engaged somewhere eke; but what you fail to state is where that is. I am not advocating buying .New Zealand goods entirely regardless of price, but where an indus-