ROTORUA SEAT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 485, 15 October 1928, Page 12

ROTORUA SEAT

COUNTRY PARTY’S CAMPAIGN MR. JUDD SUGGESTS REDUCED TARIFFS (Special to THE SUN) ROTORUA, To-day. The Country Party candidate for the Rotorua seat, Mr. W. H. Judd, addressed a gathering- of electors at Rotorua at the week-end. Mr. F. E. Martin, of Ngongotaha, presided. Mr. Judd said he had 25 years’ experience as a farmer. The man on the land was producing 90 per cent, of the wealth of the country, and secondary industries only 10 per cent., yet he found there were less people on the land than there were seven years ago. Farmers increased the production of their holdings, yet the settlement of the land, which was vital to their existence, was declining. Every tax that had been collected through the Customs to foster secondary industries eventually reached the man on the land, and he could not pass it on to anyone else. He suggested that all protective tariffs should be reduced by 10 per cent, year by year, until they were extinguished. By this means industries which benefited by the present duties would adjust themselves to the new conditions, and the producers’ burden would be lightened. Mr. Judd received a very attentive hearing, and was accorded a vote of thanks.