TARIFF POLICY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 54, 1 February 1938, Page 7

TARIFF POLICY.

PROTECTION FOR INDUSTRIES. PREMIER’S STATEAIENT. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Jan. 31. “It is not our desire to discriminate, deliberately in the matter of tariffs ; it is our desire to protect New Zealand industries,” declared the Prime Minister (Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage) to-day when replying to the charges made in a cable from Canberra that New Zealand was introducing into Empire trade relations the principle of discrimination. Air Savage said that, unless New Zealand could protect its standard of life against the outside world, it might as well forget about lifting the standard above the standard of the outside world. “And we are not prepared to do that,” he added. “We have, for instance, introduced the 40-hour week, and I do not think that anyone outside New Zealand should seriously question our right to do it, and it seems just as impossible for them to see that we cannot do it without taking into serious consideration the protection of our industries against undue competition from outside. “It is our desire to work in with Australia as far as we can, and there 'is no desire to discriminate against Australia. But we are not going to I let our standards go when it conies to a matter of deciding whether our industries are to he protected or whether we will agree just to keep pace with the hours of work and general standards of life in other parts of the world.”