IMPORT SELECTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 117, 14 November 1939, Page 8

IMPORT SELECTION

POLICY REVIEWED

DISCUSSION BY MINISTER

"Import selection enables New Zealand to keep its people in employment, to build secondary industries rationally, to give more trade to England, and it enables us to make ample provision for the payment of interest on our debt," said the Minister of Finance (the Hon: W. Nash) when discussing the Government's policy of import selection last night. Referring to the question of tea supplies, he indicated that arrangements had.been made to ensure that all the tea required in the next nine months would be made available. Mr. Nash the position arising out of the ' shortage of sterling funds. "We had a certain amount of interest to pay on our debts, a certain amount of capital to be repaid from Government and local body debts," he said. "These had to be paid—there was never any question that they would not be. There was a certain amount left over for, imports. That means that no matter what system had been devised, it would have been j impossible to pay for any more im- 1 ports than had been paid for this year, "But in the main people in New Zealand were in employment; they were getting more reasonable wages; theifli spending power was increased. They still wanted the same amount of goods, the same purchases in the shops, and so the shops demanded of wholesalers and manufacturers the same- amount of goods. This meant that'manufacturers and importers were demanding the same amount of raw material and finished goods. "Yet ,here were we in a position where we had not sufficient overseas money to pay for the goods which this demand would need. The advice given by some sections of the community was that the Government should cut down Public Works, cut expenditure," retrench on social services, and generally repeat the procedure adopted in past years. This means^ that these people were advising that''thousands of men should be put out of work, that their families should suffer,, that those who need social security should do with less, and that generally ' the poorerpaid section of the-community should bear the burden of what'is a national problem, namely, the cutting down of imports. GOVERNMENT'S DECISION. The Government refused emphatic-, ally to adopt this course. Accordingly it worked- gut a system of keeping imports within our capacity to pay for them, but which was not based on cutting wages or retrenching on Public Works. This procedure has been called the import selection policy. "The Government decided that if. imports were to be cut, then it would choose which ones were to come into New Zealand; it would choose the more essential ones instead of cutting everything by some fraction, whether it was an important or an unimportant com-, modity. The Government decided that, some things would be allowed in un- j restricted, while other things not so I important would be cut down more." j The import selection policy, said the Minister, was also used to expand local, manufacturing. That was a much more | rational and sensible method of assist- j ing local industry than by putting high" duties on imported goods as was done in many other countries. One further aspect of the import selection policy was very important, and that was in. selecting which imports were to come in, the Government decided that English manufacturers should be given the Best treatment. "We are purchasing from England as much 4 as we have money to pay for,, and we are buying a bigger proportion, of .our needs in England under this import selection policy," said Mr. Nash. _