INCREASED PRICES

Hokitika Guardian, 26 August 1930, Page 8

INCREASED PRICES

NEW ZEALAND MARKET

AUCKLAND, August 22

Drastic price increases in the majority of cars on the market in Now Zealand are inevitable if the new Canadian tariff rates announced yesterday are retained. The new schedule will more than doublethe duty. payable on Canadian cars, and if. this is passed on to the retail prices in full, it will involve increases ol from £25 to TSO n the cost 'of cars in the so-called “popular” price, class. Only three makes of cars which have been paying full tariff, for American products have been selling in large,numbers,in New Zealand, and the great majority oi those prominent in sales totals have enjoyed the rates ol duty applied to English makes. So many familiar makes will be affected that the result will be the most sweeping jump in car prices experienced for many years. The effect is to give increased preference to English cars and to decrease the discrepancy between American cars and cars which have been classed as Canadian and admitted on the,. English basis in the past. Auckland importers of. British vehicles were elated yesterday and claimed that the action which they said, was overdue, would provide English manufacturers with the opportunity which they were seeking to secure a fair .share of New Zealand’s jiusiness.

Dealers in the Canadian cars were staggered by the blow which had be.en suddenly dealt them. American car dealers were unperturbed, considering that, if anything, the move was in their favour.

“The Government is steadily assisting the working class to walk,” remarked one dealer, who pointed out that it was the low priced car that was affected. The new tariff would undoubtedly achieve its object, and importers would be forced to cross the border and purchase in America, where the price ex-factorv of the same type of vehicle was cheaper, owing to the benefits of mass production and larger output. In the . past, the decreased cost in the United States had been more, than offset by the lower cP,..; which the Canadian car enjoyed as an Empire product. If the two countries were placed almost on the same footing, it would be cheaper to buy direct in the United States. It might he that central firms in Wellington or oti.i/ centres in the south, which held New Zealand agencies and indented for the whole of the Dominion, were tied by contracts to take the product of Canadian factories. This was not known in Auckland, as the central agency here was solely responsible for ihe placing of orders for indenting cars. In one case, however, the effect would he seriously felt, owing to the fact that an American factory manufactured no right-hand drive cars. These were produced entirely at the firm’s Canadian factory. The importation of left-hand drive cars, which were used in so many otlior countries to comply with the “keep to the right” rule of the road was prohibited in New Zealand.