JAM MANUFACTURE & THE SUGAR DUTY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 232, 21 September 1876, Page 2

JAM MANUFACTURE & THE SUGAR DUTY.

To thb Editor of the i Evening Mail.'

Sir — I notice one of your contemporaries wonders at the apathy of our colonists in not manufacturing jam, when so much is imported from Tasmania and elsewhere. But an inspection of our tariff -will show the reason. One penny per pound is the duty on sugar, and this increases its price quite 25 per cent to the customer. Now, as sugar is an article of necessity that we cannot produce, and as it enters largely into some manufactures (jams and confectionery particularly), it would be sound policy to admit it free. And if the revenue from it is still wanted to keep up the crazy system of pauper immigration, put a tax on all coal imported. We can produce coal in abundance and of excellent quality; Encourage the production of it by a duty of 2s 6d to 5s per ton on all imported. Besides, a large portion of the coal imported is consumed by foreign steamships, which take very large sums, out of New Zealand and give little or no trade iu return, and a large portion of the' duty would be paid by them uutil our own coalfields sufficiently developed to supply the demand. In this way, too, work would be found for a few of the 5000 immigrants that I cannot but think are to be recklessly introduced this year. — I ara, &c,

G. E. N,

September 19th, 1876.