DUTY ON GOLF CLUBS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 433, 18 January 1933, Page 3

DUTY ON GOLF CLUBS

CRAFT OF CLUB-M AKIN G HARD HIT BY T.ARIFF. Loitdon, Saturday. Golf players are troubled because there is a duty of 20 per cent, on tbe raw material of golf clubs. Sir Murroch McKenzie Wood asked the president of the Board of Trade in the House recently whether his attention had becn drawn to the effect of the new import duties on the golf clubrnaking industry; whether he was aware that the timbers persinnnon and, hiekory from which clubs were made were grown only in the United States of America and that about 75 per cent. of the output of British golf club makers was sent overseas; and whether seeing that the duties operated as a preference in favour of foreign manufacturers he would take action to ensure an early reconsideration of the question of these duties. Mr. Runciman, replied that applications on behalf of the golf club-mak-ing industries in connection with the import duties had already been made to the Imperial Duties Advisory Committee and would be subject to the ordinary course. Lenefit to Steel Shafts. It seems th'at hiekory fit for shafts is grown only in the United States. Now, owing to the import tax, the best hiekory shafts will cost 6s to 7s niore each, and persimmon heads in a like proportion. The result will be that th'e craft of club-making already hard hit by steel shafts, will be faced with extinction. "Golf Illustrated," which deals with the subject as a matter of great urgency, says that it means that if these duties continue to be imposed our overseas trade will suffer, as it is already suffering. Assistants are being thrown out of work, and the last condition is worse than the first. "Still further," says the journal, "this duty is in effect handing over a preference to America, whence this timber is derived, e.g., 20 per cent. in fact that preference grantod to us by New Zealand as compared with the United States. Impose 20 per cent. cn ourselves here and what is the result. This preference of ours in New Zealand is virtually neutralised, wiped out, in favour of the States. Our preference into Australia on this wood is only 10 per csnt. We impose upon ourselves 10 per cent. What earthly made from these woods into Australia? Against the United States, at chanee have we to trade in golf clubs least, there is none."