Troubled Merchants

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 236, 24 December 1927, Page 1

Troubled Merchants

WHEAT PRICES KEPT IN THE DARK Government’s Inactivity EXTRA DEPOSIT ON ALL IMPORTATIONS WHEN the New Zealand Government adjusted the rates of duty on imported flour, and assessed the figures according to a sliding scale, the troubles of the merchants and of the purchasers of the product were by no means at an end. It is the Government, in fact, that is now holding the merchants in a state of glorious indecision as to what price they are to charge for the wheat they import from Australia.

'J'HE Customs Department at Well-

ington, with, a characteristic desire to protect its own interests in every way, has refused to accept the word of the merchants upon the assessed value of the wheat consignments, and insists that until the current domestic value at the date of shipment is ascertained, a deposit of 2d, 3d, and in some cases, 4d a bushel, must be paid before clearance of the consignments is made. Alternatively the importer must leave sufficient of the cargo on the wharf to cover what the department considers to be sufficient for the difference that might arise in value. Merchants naturally are perturbed about this, not only because of the extra finance involved—which after all is infinitesimal—but because of their inability to name the price at which they are to pass on the wheat to the consumer. They at the best can but name a price and guess at the result. Negotiations have been going on between the Auckland merchants and the Customs Department to secure an equitable settlement of the difficulty, but the hands of the Auckland office of the department are tied through the inactivity of the Controller of

Customs at Wellington, whose persistent silence is coldly received In this city. TRADING IS IMPOSSIBLE Some merchants declare that trading is impossible under these corditions, because ever since the new tariff began to operate in October this has been going on, and they have not been able to conduct business with their eyes open. Other merchants go so far as to allege that the South Island growers are the cause of a great deal of the trouble through having whispered into the ear of the Government upon the dangers of allowing the Northern merchant to have too much of his own way. The Collector of Customs in Auckland, Mr. A. V. Penn, meets the inquirer with the departmental wave of the hand and the unilluminating reply: “The question is still being considered by the department.” And in the meantime the merchants, who work on a trading profit of 2d and od a bushel when dealing in wheat, are paying this trading profit out to the department more or less as a guarantee of good faith, and at the same time placing themselves in the dark as to what they are going to charge their customers.