THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1908. TARIFF BENEFITS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9031, 18 January 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1908. TARIFF BENEFITS.

When the Minister of Customs brought down his Tariff proposals last session we congratulated him upon having performed a great task in a highly satisfactory manner. Up to that time the Tariff was full of noraalies r and while the importer found the utmost difficulty in understanding its multitudinous intricacies the Customs authorities were often in a quandary in regard to its inter' pretation. To recast the Tariff so tlfat he who runs might read and understand, and to do it within a few months from the Minister's accession to office was a remarkable performance, and placed the Hon. J. A. MHlar at the head of most of his predecessors in office as a man of affairs. From the outset we acknowledged the value of this work, while confessing to serious doubts as to the wisdom of making enormous remissions in taxation without devising ways and means to protect the consumer from the cupidity of the trader. We still think such a course was; desir able, however difficult tho task of formulating a scheme to give effect to it; but it is satisfactory to note that the consumer has benefited to a very considerable extent, notably in respect of the remission upon sugar. In this one item duty to the extent of about £300,000 was removed, and as a great proportion of sugar is used by the people in a free state, and all the dealers have given their customers the full benefit of

the- reduction, a very substantial benefit has accrued to the householder. In other respects—-where sugar forms part of manufactured articles—the advantage is not yet so apparent, and probably the manufacturer and retailer will reap the "benefit of the remission rather than the consumer. This, however, is only to be expected until a better system of allocating'' remissions can be devised. Mr Millar'■himself candidly admits that he does not': hope to put all the remitted dutieS into the pockets of the consumers.! -Tgking* the protective, portions of 'the tariff, Mr Millar, in; an interview with a press representative, states that he has abundant evidence that the industries of the dominion have largely benefited. Manufacturers in several trades have informed him that they have orders which will keep them going for months ahead—that at no time during tfeie past fifceen years have they had so much work in hand and the difficulty is to obtain sufficient labour. This scarcity of labour, we are told, applies to almost all the skilled trades, such as coach-building, boot machinists, cabinet-making. In the matter of preference, too, it appears that the manufacturers are benefiting to a considerable extent. They are protected from the severe competition of Germany and America, and although they ar? now brought more directly into competition with the Motherland it is expected that the dominion manufacturers will increase in greater ratio. In all this there is something very gratifying, aid we have to congratulate the Minister upon the result, so far, of his Tariff Reform.