N.Z. MANUFACTURERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 596, 23 February 1929, Page 8

N.Z. MANUFACTURERS

Annual Conference Next Week

PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE OX Wednesday next the New Zealand Manufacturers federation will open its annual conference m W ellington. and delegates from all parts of the Dominion will meet to discuss remits of vital importance to the immediate future oi our secondary industries. The result of the conference should be a bold forward movement to place our manufactures in their rightful position as an essential productive iorce in 0111 national prosperity.

:ST and foremost as a factor in the prosperity of our manufacturing industries is the securing of effective safeguarding of industries against unfair competiroad, thereby reducing our external debt by keeping our money in the country and spending it on goods which we produce ourselves instead of sending it overseas; draining our national credit and our financial resources. One little lesson will illustrate this in a simple manner. The Christchurch Tramways Board once decided to purchase two street sprinklers, and

the prices quoted for American and locally-made ones were practically the same. So the board decided to buy one of each. The local machine was still sprinking strongly when the foreign one was falling to pieces and qualifying for the scrap-heap. In the case of the locally-made one Christchurch purchased a better sprinkler at the same price as the machine from overseas, and the money for it remained in Christchurch. In the other case Christchurch purchased the sprinkler, but Uncle Sam received nearly £1,500 of the ratepayers’cash which was never seen again. A THREATENED FLOOD

The moral of the sprinklers can be applied to the many million pounds’ worth of goods which we now import annually and which could and should be made here by New Zealanders from our own raw materials. The trade returns just issued show that for the seven months of the current “production” year up to January 31 last our exports were the highest for seven years, and a new record was

established for any January month. That was good news for everyone. But the imports for the same period were £1.937,395 more than for the same period last year, and £1, 066,81* in excess of the almost record amount of exports. That was bad news for our Industrialists while factories and mills are partially idle and so many skilled workers unemployed or working broken time. A SAFEGUARDING BOARD

The most Important remit for the Manufacturers’ Conference new week is the proposal for the establishment of a tariff or safeguarding board, which will provide the machinery for hearing claims for the effective safeguarding of our local manufacturing industries and their workers. Similar bodies exist in Australia, Britain and other countries, where they provide a constant medium for dealing with the claims of each separate industry as required, instead of Parliament being called on to discuss the whole of the tariff schedules at very lengthy intervals. The tariff was revised by Parliament in 1907 but no attempt was made to reconsider it exhaustively until 1927 —twenty years after! That revision was then drafted by a committee of civil servants; three being from the Customs Department and one from the Department of Industries and Commerce. These commissioners toured the country for several months and heard claims, in strict secrecy, for increases or reductions in the tariff. As might be expected from the work of a committee carrying three Customs experts out of four investigators, the new tariff of 1927 was designed from a Customs revenue point of view, and the welfare of our industrialists seemed to be a minor consideration. “A ROTTEN JOB”

After an exhaustive examination of the new tariff by the manufacturers’ organisations of the Dominion, a representative deputation interviewed Mr. Coates to convey their opinion of it. Mr. J. Sutherland Ross, as head of the delegation, voiced that opinion very candidly when he said to the Prime Minister: “To use a homely phrase, we are bound to regard the tariff as a rotten job.” Since then the policy of the manufacturers has been to urge the setting up of a Tariff Board which will consist of experienced industrialists, and not Customs officials, who will hear all applications for increased shelter. Importers, farmers, single-taxers or other objectors, may appear and oppose any increase, or prove that approval of the claims made will mean higher prices. The Tariff Board brings every case into the full light of open publicity and future variations in the tariff would not be the result of lobbying in Wellington or other hidden approaches. Each claim is adjudged on its merits after full public inquiry, and the board’s recommendations to Parliament go from men fully qualified to give a considered opinion on the evidence submitted. The whole question is thus removed from the unsatisfactory atmosphere of party politics when Parliament is asked to accept or reject the recommendations of the board. P.A.