TARIFF POLICY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 176, 15 October 1927, Page 9

TARIFF POLICY

STEP NEARER FREE BREAKFAST TABLE REVENUE STILL A NEED (THE SUE'S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. It may be simply gathered from the remarks of the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, in the House of Representatives, that the Government hopes, for j some years at least, to use the j Customs largely for the collection of revenue. 1 Mr. Coates describes the Tariff Bill i just passed as the nearest possible ap- j | proach to the free breakfast-table we can get. The third-reading stage of the Bill gave members the opportunity to reiterate their opinions and to review the whole question. Mr. H. E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, regretted that the House had not given more protection to many of our secondary industries, and noted particularly that the Minister had not mentioned coal-mining in his tariff proposals. Mr. Coates: Did they ask for this? Mr. Holland: They have been asking for a long time that coal used in New Zealand should be produced in New Zealand. While we know that there is a great deal more of our coal being used on the railways now I believe that we aye still not using enough. While we are listening to this clamour for the use of New Zealand material we find that some of those who are manufacturing in New Zealand are using imported coal. Mr. H. L. Tapley: Whose fault was this in the past? Mr. Holland: I am not blaming any government or any party. The past j is dead and let the dead past bury its dead. We have to think of the living present. The first people we have to convince of this is the Government. The Hon. A. D. McLeod: Start on your own workmen. Mr. Holland claimed that the manner in which Labour had approached the Bill was unchallengeable. Mr. Coates considered that one of the chief features of the tariff was the conferring on the Government power to negotiate with other countries. Greater markets were waiting for our primary produce in countries which had their doors practically closed to us, and it was incumbent upon our people to safeguard our own interests. In effect the Government said to these countries, “We are ready to do business with you in certain lines.’’ Mr. Coates claimed that tariff meant remissions of approximately £IBO,OOO which was little short of the Minister’s original estimate. Revenue had to come in from customs as well as from direct taxation for a few years to come. “This is as far as it is possible to get the free breakfast-table,” Mr. Coates went on. “Taxation is upon luxuries and not upon every-day articles that the more humble of our people have to buy. If the people want luxuries they will have to pay for them. This policy is manifest right through the Customs Bill.”