AMERICA’S NEW TARIFF AND ITS RESULTS.

Shannon News, 5 December 1922, Page 2

AMERICA’S NEW TARIFF AND ITS RESULTS.

VASTLY INCREASED COST OP LIVING-. America, on the enactment of the Prohibition ("bone-dry,” though according to reports "sponge-damp” would fit the case better) laws, necessarily lost considerable sums in internal revenue. In a frantic attempt to regain the lost amount, coupled with the necessity for providing the gigantic sums necessary to the attempted enforcement of the Prohibition laws, Congress has built a tariff wall round the U.S.A. which has increased vastly the cost of living within it. In June last the Democrats declared that "the food bill of the American people would bo increased by many billions of dollars yearly” as a result of the new tariff. The Retail Clothiers* Association declared that the ugav duties would increase the price of clothing by.from 3 dollars to 5 dollars a suit. There are higher duties on meat, on wheat, - and on hides. Senator Underwood declared that the wheat duty'alone would increase the food bill by 1Q0,0U0,000 dollars, while the duty on scoured wool would cost the people 200,000,000 dol-

lars per annum. Lost revenue must be made good somehow and somewhere; it can only bo compensated for by taxing the necessaries of life, and thus increasing the already inflated cost of living. Here in New Zealand Prohibition would mean an annual revenue loss of £2,500,000. That amount would have [ to be found in order that the country’s business might proceed unhampered. The business of a country resembles the business of a private individual; receipts must balance expenditure, with a margin on the right side if it be possible. Prohibition would seriously deplete revenue, and it would inevitably increase expenditure. Any law octets money to enforce; the experience of America, conclusively proves that Prohibition is more difficult and costly to enforce than any other law on the statute books of a civilised country. ' Keep the cost of living down by voting Continuance.