THE WAIKATO TIMES With which iS Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1930. . SUGAR.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17985, 2 April 1930, Page 4

THE WAIKATO TIMES With which iS Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1930. . SUGAR.

It is strange that while the Dominion periodically suffers from a shortage of sugar supplies the present over-pro-duction of sugar in the world amounts to several millions of tons. Despite this fact, prices remain high. In New Zealand there is pract’cally no duty on sugar, yet the price level is kept at a high point, whereas there are countless tons of raw sugar overseas that the growers cannot get rid of. In England there has been in force a tariff in favour of the Empire-grown product as against the foreign article. The Home Government proposes to cancel the tariff in an endeavour to bring down the cost of living. From all over the world one hears the same cry—over-produc-tion of various commodities and the crashing of their prices, and yet the manufactured article retains the same unfair high price. As for the abolition of the tariff in England, it is not at all likely that it will appreciably alter the retail price and yet it will mean virtual bankruptcy to Britain’s oldest colonies —the West Indies. For years struggling against artificial’ trade barriers imposed not only by foreign nations but, irony of fact, by Great Britain herself, these islands, ’once flourishing and opulent, are gradually weakening under the unequal fight, and are fast fading out of the picture as far as commerce is concerned. Recently Lord Elibank did good service in the House of Lords by impressing on the Government the urgent need for the prompt publication of Lord Oliver’s report on the state of the su&ar industry in British Guiana and the West Indies. It is of vital importance that they should not only publish the report, but should also dispel with the least possible delay the present injurious uncertainty about their intentions. Lord Passfleld said in his reply that the Government had for the moment no policy to disclose. But they have had ample warning of the perils with which the industry is threatened, and of what the contents of the report were likely to be. Since he left England last October to investigate the effect which the withdrawal of the sugar preference would have on the West Indies Lord Olivier has made statements which point to the conclusion that the position is more critical than it was when he went out on a similar mission 33 years ago, and even than it was last October. At the official opening of the inquiry in British Guiana he expressed the opinion that, if the Government should decide to do away with the sugar duties most of the estates in the West Indies would have to take rapid steps to get out of business, unless a remedy was forthcoming. His later statement was equally frank and outspoken. If the preference is annulled by the repeal of the sugar duties “without adequate counteracting assistance,” the British West Indian sugar industry will ‘be dismantled and come to an end, except for local supplies, as rapidly as estates can be cropped and wound up. That, in the ■ words of the Government's own nomi-

nee, a Labour statesman with a long and intimate connection with the West Indies, is the deliberate conclusion at which he and his colleague arrived as the result of the inquiry which they undertook at the Government’s request. It leaves no room for doubt that, as Lord Passfleld himself admits, “something will have to be done.” In the debate Lord Olivier repeated with still stronger emphasis all that he had said before. In existing circumstances, and without preference, he and his colleague are convinced that the West Indian sugar industry cannot continue to be carried on first of alt because the collapse of credit is making it impossible to get advances from the banks; and, secondly, because the .statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer “has knocked the bottom out of the market.” When Mr Snowden declared the Government s intentions last July—to sweep away before it left office all duties upon sugar and alter articles of food subject to duty and on which there is a preference he said that the Government was giving its careful and sympathetic consideration to the difficulties of the sugar producers in the West Indies and other colonies. But, in spite of this profession of sympathy Mr Snowden’s threat —which, according to Lord Olivier, he could not have made if he had fully known the facts—has not been withdrawn and is doing incalculable mischief. The West Indies are producing sugar at an average loss of from £1 to £t 5s a ton. If the preference is taken away Lord Olivier calculates that the average rate of loss will be £5 a ton. That, of course, would mean the death of the industry. As it is, the growers in the West Indies are producing and trying to sell their sugar in competition with the growers of other nations who are supported by high tariffs, bounties, and subsidies. If they are compelled to give up the unequal struggle they might be able in one or two of the islands to produce other crops for export instead of sugar. But as a general rule they have no alternative.

The continued, over-production of sugar in foreign countries, which is far in excess of consumption, sheltered behind a high tariff and subsidised and assisted by cartels, as Lord EliLank put it, has so flooded the maikcls of the world that the British West Indies, and East Africa lo a lessci extent, find it impossible to compete with it. If, in face of the fact that there is more sugar in the world than can possibly be consumed, the people of New Zealand are still to be forced to pay an exorbitant price, can they not demand that the Dominion Government make sure that we are paying that price for Empire sugar only, and thus help our own people ? It does not seem fair on the face of it that the farthing per pound import duty should be levied on Imperial and foreign sugar alike. We cry out continually for Empire support of our products, why should not New Zealand reciprocate? Under strict Government supervision the cartels that Lord Elibank speaks of would be forced to keep down the price to that of legitimate profit, and without even raising a tariff on foreign sugar, could force the sale of Empire sugar only, and at a reasonable price.