LAND ANNUITIES

Hokitika Guardian, 25 March 1933, Page 6

LAND ANNUITIES

CERTAIN FACT CLARIFIED,

TAXPAYERS PAYING DEFICIT,

From the statement made in the House of Commons by the Dominions Secretary, certain facts concerning the Irish land annuities become clear. First is the keeping of Mr de Valera’s threat to appropriate the payments, in order to devote them to normal exchequer requirements of the Free State. They have not gone into a suspense acount, as was earlier suggested, witty a view to arbitration. iYext is the continued willingness of tlie British Government to negotiate or to abide by tho decision of arbitrators.

Mr tie Valera’s refusal to give reasonable considerations to either course is now made virtually absolute by his natificatiou that the annuities are appropriated. He lias slammed the dbor on the British offer. These facts lend special interest to the Dominons Secretary’s particulars of sums with held by the Free State Government' and amounts collected bj r the British Government under the Import Duties Act toward recouping the loss through iion-rcceipt of the annuities. The withheld annuities amount now to £4,460,000, of which sum £2,910,000 represents dues since the tariff on Irish goods came into force; and the total receipts under the tariff were approximately £2,123,000 on February 28. Thus the tariff set-off against the intercepted annuities is about £2,337,000 short of the total payments appropriated /by the Inisli Government and about £787,000 short in the period of the special tariff. . As the British Government is paying the bondholders, this deficiency has to be faced by taxpayers in the United Kingdom. But there can bo little satisfaction in the Free State over the shortage and this burden on others, even if the import duties also are reckoner] as collected, first 0 f ah, from British pockets; for Ireland is paying much more dearly than. Britain for Mr de Valera’s policy. In tile first month of the duties the Free State’s cattle export to the United Kingdom suffered •?, reduction of £901,616, and the total exports for the month went back by £1,890,351. The adverse balance on the Irish trade, which was £316,875 for the same montlf a year before, was £1,433,204 in that first month, of the tariff war. ... At ; that rate, the Free State is paying a colossal sum to gratify Mr de Valera’s whim, and the intercepted annuities are but a negligible consolation. Probably the worst feature is ..the. strong bias created in England against Irish ■ agricultural , products, partly on account of the Free State’s action over the annuities and partly in disgust -at' Hie prohibitive tariff- it has' placed on British goods. As Mr de Valera, himself .has had to. admit that no alternative market for Irish agricultural, .products......can be. found outside the United Kingdom, his pol--:icy:ti,s steadily- ruining ..the -people of •the Free. Staiig. But In did not tell j them at the .Jirst that they must be j prepared to buffer for his cause P