IMPORT RESTRICTIONS

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20820, 2 June 1939, Page 6

IMPORT RESTRICTIONS

EFFECT ON MOTOR INDUSTRY COMMENT IN ENGLAND Referring to the New Zealand import restrictions, the Autocar, a motoring 4 magazine published in England, •<ays: “The object and efTect of the system, we are told, would be to increase rather than to cut down the preponderance of British exports to the motor Industry’s best overseas customer. Mr Savage, New Zealand Prime Minister, gave a categorical assurance to this effect. “Now comes the news that imports of complete cars are to be banned altogether for the second half of the year and the quota for unassembled vehicles cut by 40 per cent. “In the case of cars assembled in New Zealand, this will be a bad enough setback, but tlie great majority of British firms have no such facilities, nor do they, individually, sell sufficient, cars to warrant the establishment of assembly plants. Last year, from July to December, exports of complete cars totalled 5i32, valued at £G 19,609. This business will be lost. “It seems to us a grave pity that a British country, and one, too, which has no motor manufacturing interests of its own to safeguard, should feel itself compelled, even temporarily, te take such drastic action.”