THE TARIFF PROPOSALS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8504, 7 August 1907, Page 5

THE TARIFF PROPOSALS.

By Telegraph —Press Association. WELLINGTON, August 6. The Minister of Labour, to-night, received a deputation from the Wellington Boct Operatives Society in regard to the tariff. The deputation urged on the Minister the necessity of standing hard and fast to the proposals brought forward, and hoped the Minister would do his best to carry them through Parliament. It had been said by a former deputation that the proposals would increase the duty on shoes largely worn by the children of the working classes, but that was not true. The figures set forth by the importers were not reliable. The Government's proposals not only meant full employment to the trade, but they would put the industry on a fair footing. The proposals would not only protect the workers in the trade, but the public as well.

The Hon. J. A. Millar said his proposals had been brought forward aft-jr mature consideration. The whole of his information went to show that a very shoddy class of boot and absolute rubbish was being imported, which, when put into a window at a cheap price, seemed to appeal to the people as an article worth buying. He had, however, also had samples of colonial manufacture which were a disgrace to the country, but what occurred? Unless we handed over our trade to the sweaters themselves, it was absolutely necessary for our workers to start on a cheap line of articles if they were to keep pace with outside competition. He did not want to drive a shilling's worth of labour out of the colony. "We don't intend to go back on our tariff one iota," said the Minister, "except in regard to felt shoes, and india-rubber shoes not manufactured in the colony. That is going to be considered by my colleagues. With reference to boots, shoes and ordinary leather slippers, the tariff you've got is the tariff the Government intend to pass. The whole object has been first of all to find work for our own people. We are net going in for a purely protective tariff, but we are putting forward a tariff which we believa will place several industries in this country on a much better footing than they are at present. So far as the Government is I concerned it is the intention to endeavour, as far as lies in our power, to make these resolutions the law of the country."

CABLE INEWS.

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