TARIFF SPARRING

Evening Star, Issue 20061, 29 December 1928, Page 18

TARIFF SPARRING

AUSTRALIA AND U.S.A. PENALISATION MEASURES Resentment is being felt in Austrat lia at the suggestion that the United States, which has already a heavy trade balance as against tne Commonwealth, may penalise goods imported into America from Australia, because of the Commonwealth’s practice of including certain freights when -aleulating the dutiable value ol gooJs exported from United States of America. “ With the balance of trade liitieiu Australia and the United States so strongly in her favour one woqhl expect that the United Stxt-os >v-.mld avoid provocative action, especially over an imaginary grievance,'’ said tne Commonwealth Minister for Trade and Customs (Mr Gullett). He was discussing the introduction into the United States House of Representatives A a Bill giving the Administration power to penalise alleged uiserinnnati ms against the trade of the United Sk-Us. It seemed, Mr Gullett said, t..ac the Bill was at least in part diveited against the Australian Customs Jaws. Mr Gullett explained that a pro> sion of the Commonwealth Customs Act, which had been in force same 19U1, required the inclusion oi the inland freight to the port of sliipment to Australia in the value for duty of goods subject to ad valorem duties. V\ hen shipment took place at a port cuiside the country from which the goods ware originally dispatched to Australia -ita point of exit from that country was regarded as the port of export, and the inland freight to tiiat point only ..is included in tho value for duty. If. for instance, .goods were despatched from Montreal, Canada, for sljipmeiil at New York, the height to the Canadian border only would be .included in the value for duty. This rule applied uniformly to all countries whose goods had to pass through a contiguous country lo the port of shipment. It applied alike lo Caltalian goods shipped at an American port and lo American goods shipped at a Canadian port. A largo proportion of Canada’s trade was shipped at New York. In the ease of goods despatched to Australia from a bordci town in the United States, for example, Detroit, by the Canadian Railways for sliipment at Vancouver, the freight sharges incurred outside the United States—that was, in Canada, were not a dutiable charge, hut.if the goods were forwarded by rail within' tiie United States Iron) Detroit lor shipment at San Francisco the whole ot the rail freight was dutiable. The value for duty, and consequently the amount of duly paid, was greater in tho second than the first ease. The remedial measures taken by the American Parliament, assuming that they were on the same lines as an earlier Bill, would provide for a penalising duty in the United States on the goods of any country in which a higher amount of duty was charged on American goods shipped from an Amureiaii port than was charged on the same American goods s ' pped Irom a port in a contiguous country. The proposal lor the introduction of penalising measures appeared to arise from a conflict between the interests of American'niamilacturcrs, who found it an advantage to send their goods by Canadian railways and ships to Australia, and the interests ol American transportation and shipping concerns, which desired to divert that tradio to their own lines. One fact appeared to he lost sight of in the United States—that the- rule had general application, and while in some cases the United Stales railways were adversely afleeted, in other "instances the Canadian shipper hud an inducement to use the United States railways rather than the Canadian railways.

It was . ardly likely added Air Gullet!, that Congress would pass legislation which would make the Australian practice, which had a general application in all cases, a ground for imposing penalising duties on Australian goods, in view of the fact that Australia's exports, excluding gold and specie, amounted to about £8,01)0,000 a year, conJiiied chiefly to a small range of raw materials required by American industries, while the exports ol the United States to Australia amounted to about £-10,000,000, covering a widerange of manufactured articles. Meanwhile the Ministcr_ is applying the Australian anti-clumping duty to Californian siiltants, including _ bleached and unbleached seedless raisins. The decision was reached on the recommendation of the Tariff Board, whie.li' inquired into the allegations that sultanas from the United States were being sold to importers in Australia at less than reasonable export prices. The Tariff Board found that the importation of low-priced Calilornian fruit was having a prejudicial effect on tiic Australian dried fruits industry.