The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1919. SUBSIDISATION OF INDUSTRIES

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 469, 3 October 1919, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1919. SUBSIDISATION OF INDUSTRIES

Hatters Now ! Who Next ?

"We nothing extenuate, nor let clown auaht in malice."

This paper has just received a circular from the Union Felt Hat Co., Ltd., of Dunedin, consisting of an appeal to Parliament to subsidise the hatmaking industry in New Zealand. If the circular was sent to us for the purpose of enlisting our support it is in grievous case indeed, because we are not at all kindly disposed towards granting a subsidy out of the general taxpayers' pockets for the benefit of hatters or any othsr people who cannot make industries pay on their merits. The company claims that a subsidy would reduce the cost of living, but subsidies of this nature have a nasty liability of being swallowed up because of the increase in wages, cost of production, or some such real or fictitious reason. Though an exception may be made here and there in regard to subsidies found to be warrantable owing to war conditions, which still obtain in som« cases, the exception must not be allowed to become the rule. When subsidies are given, or import duties imposed for purposes of protection, the results, except in a very few cases, are most prejudicial to the interests of the nation at large. It would be interesting, for instance, to know how much extra the people of this Dominion have had to pay for their footwear during the past decade, because of the import duty, exacted, not primarily for the purpose of revenue, but to curry political favour with a couple of thousand persons interested in the trade. The case of boots is a particularly good one to cite, since the impost comes heaviest on people with large families. A certain measure of protection is desirable, but the policy has already been carried too far in New Zealand, and it is high time this deceptive device for reducing the cost A living, or bolstering ip industries the employees of which would be vastly better employed increasing the volume of primary products grown, was exhaustively exposod. If a halt is not soon called the cumulative burden of subsidies will necessitate greatly increased taxation for revenue purposes, and so we shall go whirling round the vicious circle until we are drawn into the eddy of economic submersion.