TARIFF REMISSIONS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8983, 18 November 1907, Page 4

TARIFF REMISSIONS

On Friday last a return was ,laid on the table of the House of Representatives showing the estimated loss of revenue arising out of the abolition and reductions of duties on various items in the tariff. The total is set down at £405,250. More than half of this loss is attributed to sugar, the other large amounts being —cotton arid piece goods, £55,000; fruits, dried, £32,000; figs, dates and prunes, £12,000; vegetable oils, £12,000; paper-hangings, £7,000; glass, £7,000; and molasses and treacle, £6,000. The other items which have been reduced or abolished run from £SOO up to £4,000. It would be interesting to know how much the consuming public is likely to gain by the amended tariff, so far as articles of domestic consumption are concerned. We imagine the benefit will be very small indeed. As was pointed out ,by -the writer of our "Political Notes and Comments" at the time the tariff schedule was introduced, the Minister of Customs stated that he doubted if the general consumer , would advantage greatly by the remissions. Throughout the whole of the protracted discussion upon the Tariff Bill and the details of the .schedule attached thereto, members overlooked the fact that there was no provision to enable the consumer to secure even a moderate share of the duties remitted. The whole matter was left to be decided by competition,/which in these days of "amalgams" and secret combines, is practically non-existent We have not, for instance, heard of any reduction being made in the price of sugar, or of jams into which sugar enters in huge proportion. Jt seems as if under the circumstance the State had sacrificed a large amount of revenue upon the necessaries of life quite gratuitously. Sooner or later Parliament will have to make provision whereby the public generally will have the benefits of remissions on the necessaries of life assured to them.