IMPORT CONTROL

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 264, 6 August 1942, Page 8

IMPORT CONTROL

Effect On War Effort Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, August 5. "The Bureau of Importerg cannot agree with the Minister of Transport, Mr. Semple, when he said recently that the rubber position is something over which the New Zealand Government has no control, and that if critics wanted a ‘scapegoat’ they should concentrate on the Japs or on the Malayan rubber kings who held on to supplies till the enemy came in and helped himself,” was the comment in a statement issued today by the bureau. “Such a statement made hurriedly will no doubt be accepted by many people, but. the bureau points out that the excuses given out by the Minister are not in accordance with the facts,” it continued. “In 1939 and early in 1940 supplies of tyres were readily available and the rubber companies were anxious to export stocks to New Zealand, but the Minister of Customs, Mr. Nash, refused import licences and thus created a shortage within New Zealand. Such a shortage naturally has never been overcome, and is a further excellent example of the insidious workings of the import control regulations. “The Minister of Transport would probably be very surprised to know just how much imports of many essential lines are still being stifled by the operation of import control,” proceeds the statement. “It is felt that the sooner the country realizes that the regulations are preventing to a great extent the war effort by withholding essential and ‘critical’ lines, the sooner it will be able to appreciate the wisdom of abolishing the control.”