DUMPING DUTIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19997, 14 January 1927, Page 8

DUMPING DUTIES.

The belief that is entertained by the North Canterbury branch of the Farmers’ Union that Australian flour is being dumped into the Dominion may or may not be well-founded. The question whether wheat or flour is being imported in abnormal quantities is itself one that cannot be positively answered one way or the other. But even if the importation is abnormal, clearly that does not in itself justify the imposition of a dumping duty. Generally speaking, a dumping duty can be imposed only when the actual selling price to an importer in New Zealand of the goods that are alleged to be dumped is less than the current domestic price of those goods in the country of origin. Certainly, in no other circumstances than these can a dumping duty be legitimately imposed. Whether, however, a dumping duty can bo imposed at all is a point that emerges from an exposition of the whole matter that is contained in a letter addressed by Mr Downie Stewart, Minister of Customs, to Mr David Jones, M.P., who had suggested a possible means of obtaining accurate information respecting the current value in the Commonwealth of shipments of Australian flour exported to New Zealand, Mr Stewart quotes, apparently with approval, a passage from a work by Professor Viner to the following elfect: In international commerce the sale at different prices to purchasers in different national markets may occur without involving price discrimination if the pricedifferentials are merely adjustments to differences in the size of the unit orders coming from different countries, in the length of the credits, in the extent of the credit risks, in the grades of commodities, in the time at which the sales contracts were made, in the method of conducting the selling operations, or in the treatment of freight and packing charges. If this is to be accepted by the Minister as au authoritative pronouncement, which should serve as a guide to his department respecting the principles that are to be observed in tbe imposition of dumping duties, it may well be askfed whether it is worth while retaining in the Statute Book the provisions with reference to the levying of these duties. For, according to this authority, so many considerations enter into the whole matter that it would tax the ingenuity of the Customs authorities to establish a case of dumping under almost any conceivable circumstances. That being so, the protection which producers and manufacturers in the Dominion have supposed the existence of the, anti-dumping provisions of . the law afforded to them is unsubstantial to an extent even greater than can ever have been suspected by those business people who were doubtful concerning the benefit of these provisions.