AN INCREASED BURDEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 267, 1 February 1928, Page 10

AN INCREASED BURDEN

RESULT OF NEW TARffp BASED ON WRONG Argument between the land Farmers’ Vnion. Auckland vmce, and the Minister of Pr " on the tariff adopted last sessio^® 5 ' tinues unabated. -sion, xis. The protest from the largely covered in this * the letter:— aCt ton, “Taxation of the nece»«j,u, „ life and of means of p-od u « i( ,» which is 'passed on’ by th* ~ ■ part of the community to the'** porting section of primarv ducers had already become P £ tolerable.” '*■ “The union knows from bin., penence that the additional will cause a rise in prices,” thTbS* continues, “instead of easing th R i~ den on the main industry nfT country. The result is one of Jr tional hardship on the farming irX*' try, and it does not help that th inflicted under the guise of helw * Brit ish trade, which would have assisted even more by reducingT duty against it. "* “The avowed object of the tartr . to ‘assist’ New Zealand manufacture! by hampering and penalising portation of competing goods, vf more completely this object is attatiS the fewer will be the imports iS revenue will sink proportional New Zealand-made goods and immmL' goods sell at round about the nZ price, as importations set a standard for the locally-made aitjri. The tariff causes increases in .T prices of both imported and lo~i goods. If the consumer purchase, imported article, the increased «*! goes to the State as revenue t.tithe consumer buys the home-made » tide, the increased cost goes into thpocket of the manufacturer. “It has been past policy to eien™ ‘machinery’ and ‘tools of trade - fr™, duty and it may be well asked *k-‘ the overburdened farming iudnan should be selected from all the rains', tries of the Dominion for taxation of its implements and machinery. 1, view of the basic character of tie farming industry in this Dominion r. would appear to be specifically dear that, whatever other implements ui tools were selected for duty, the iaplements and tools of agriculture should escape. “It was a case of choosing between helping British trade, the New Zes land consumer and the primary producer, by reducing duties on Brttik goods, or of penalising the latter nro classes to give special benefit, tc local makers, and your choice been, almost throughout, to place , greater burden on the consumer ui to increase costs against the farmer,.’