REMARKABLE FIGURES.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 July 1921, Page 6

REMARKABLE FIGURES.

BIG. JUMP IN CUSTOMS. EFFECT OF AD VALOREM DUTY. The Minister for Customs (the Hon. W. Downie Stewart), interviewed by a Wellington Times representative in regard to the big jump in Customs revenue from £4,820,325 in 1910-20 to £5,408,726 for the past financial year, stated that considerable increase in revenue had been loked for in 1920-21. The Customs revenue for the year had, in fact, been estimated at six millions, an increase of some £1,200,000; but in the result the estimate bad been far exceeded. It must be pointed out. however, that this increase was not due to any increase in the rates of Customs duties by the Government. There had been no increase in the rates of duties.

The big jump in the Customs rtev«ntfa (said the Minister) was due in large part to the unexpectedly great increase in importations, consequent upon the manufacturers at Home filling far sooner than had been thought possible orders that had accumulated during the war and in the period immediately following the war.

It was also due in part to the effect of the old ad valorem rates of duty on the greatly-enhanced values of imported goods. The Minister could not say off hand how much of the increase in revenue was due to each of these causes, but the effect of the ad valorem duties on the enhanced values of imports had been allowed for in tiie estimate submitted in the Financial Statement. Thus the greater part of the increase was probably due to the bigger volume of imports, in relation to which, again, the higher invoice values would mean a greater yield from the ad valorem duties.

The Minister added that the report of the Tariff Revision Commission was not yet to hand. The Commission had not quite completed its deliberations, and in any case such a report was always submitted in the first place to Cabine and to Parliament, and was never allowed to become public property until the Tariff Revision Bill was