CONTROL OF IMPORTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 122, 13 August 1927, Page 9

CONTROL OF IMPORTS

GOVERNMENT SHOULD ACT WITH BANKS • # MR. JONES’S SUGGESTION (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. In order to secure a voice in the control of imports to New Zealand the Government should associate itself with the associated banks. This theory was expounded by Mr. L>. Jones, Ellesmere, in the House of Representatives last night when dealing with the trade of the Dominion. After the war by the insane system of imports into this country, for which business men are responsible, the whole of the money which had been accumulated in London on behalf of our farmers was mopped up, and we, in this country, were hammered with our own money, with the result that farmers suffered more severely than they should have done. Last year something similar, only less grave, occurred. The great expenditure on imports had seriously depressed the financial position of New Zealand, but, said Mr. Jones, the Government should become associated with the banks so as to have some control over the excessive imports which create such a position. If this were done they could secure an immense amount of information that would be valuable for the importers of New Zealand as to goods being bx-ought to this country, while the regulation of shipments could be better handled. He urged the Government to consider the advisability of taking power to steady up this excessive importation. Whatever objection might be held to the Government in business there were certain functions in the direction of control which the Government would do well to exercise.