MANUFACTURES AND IMPORTS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 64, 8 December 1937, Page 4

MANUFACTURES AND IMPORTS.

The Hon. D. G. Sullivan, as Minister of Industries and Commerce, and the Hon. Walter Nash, as Minister of Marketing, find themselves together just now in a very awkward corner, It may, to start with, be recalled that some few months ago certain of the Dominion 's mannfacturing interests, the footwear industry in particular, made representation to the Government tliat, under the industrial conditions that had been created since it came into power, it was impossible for them to compete successftilly witb imported goods prodnced elsewhere at much less cost. To this representation Mr. Sullivan then tiirned an anything but receptive ear, even suggesting that, like the goods in question, the facts „upon which it was based had also been manufactured. In support of this he publicly quoted statistical figures wliich certainly seemed to justify him. It was, however, quickly pointed out that these figures were six months.old and and were entirely misleading with respect to the position that had subsequently developed. Even then our Minister was inclined to pooh-pooh the manufacturers' complaints, and it was only by persistent pertinacity that they induced him to give serious consideration to them. As a result, Mr. Sullivan has found himself obliged to confess that his own first representation of the situation had been entirely wrong and that something would have to be done to rectify it if factories were to be kept going and their employees kept out of the ranks of th^ unemployed. His puzzle now is as to what the remedy is to be and how it is to be applied. The first device that has oceurred to him is the very simple one of raising the Customs duties on imports competing with the languishing local industries, It was here, however, that Mr. Nash came into the picture, for it was at once thrust upon him that this would contravene both the letter and the spifit of the Ottawa agreements under which our primary products are given such markedly preferential access to British markets on the understanding that the export of British manufactures to New Zealand would not be pre- 1 judiced'in any such way. Mr. Nash, poor man, has, greatly to his disappointment, found that, after spending a rather costly six or eight months abroad in trying to improve and extend the oversea markets for our farm products, he could do very little, if anything, more than leave well alone and continue, with some sliglit modifications, the reciprocal arrangements with the British Government that had been made by our own National Government. Except with the concurrence of the British authorities, probably far from easy to secure, any proposal for an increased tariff against British goods will have to be ruled ont, unless our Government is prepared to risk.very seriously prejudicing the almost complete •freedom with which our own exports have hitlierto been given entry to United Kingdom markets. Nor, probably, would the alternative of subsidising our secondary industries be regarded in the Old Country as anytliing better than an evasion that would be taken into account when, in the course of not very mauy months, the Qttawa agreements will have to come up for revision. Then, too, either recourse wonld necessarily mean a substantial addition to the continually increasing cost of living. v The Ministers thus find themselves impaled upon the horns of a dilemma, which, after all, is of course the creation of themselves and their colieagues of the persent Cabinet. The last thing that is likely to suggest itself to them, but still the sim- ( P^est an(l soundest solqtion of the problem, is that some at least of the smothering burdens and strangling restrictions that have heen imposed on our industries, with threats of more to follow, should be eased, if not entirely removed.. Given reasonable liberty of action and assiirance of its continuanee, with some substantial relief from the ever-growing load of taxation, raost of our bigger wage-paying industries would probably recover themselves without need for any greater tariff protection than that which they already enjoy. However, there is little hope of a Labour Government taking tliis rational view of the situation, or of its adopting any course that will not, as lieretofore, result in the exaction of extra taxation and tlie forcing still further up of the cost oi living.