DUTY ON STOCK FOODS

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 101, 31 May 1930, Page 3

DUTY ON STOCK FOODS

AGITATION TO HAVE IT LIFTED. AN INEQUITABLE POSITIGN. Strong agitation is at present Being directed in the direction of securing the removal of import duties on all stock foods in order to encourage pig and poultry breeding in the Dominion and boost tlie export of the produrts of_ these two industries. In the stirring up of this agitation it may be that those responsible are 011 the rigbt lines, but it is questionable wliether they are going far enougb. The claim is made that it is a virtual inipossi'bility for pig and poultry raisefs to purchase on a protected market and expeot to succeed with their products on one in which the world' s lowest prices rule. The argument 7s in many ways an excellent one and yet the position is exactly similar in connection with all the primary industries at the present time. The farmers purchase implements and plant, some of which have been taxed with 10 per cent. for British to 35 per cent. for foreign manufactures, and then liave to fac'e the world' s competition in disposing of produce, which has heen reaped as a result of the use of taxed material. If tlie pig and poultry keepers have arguments in their favour in agitating for an abolition of duties on stock foods, surely the jemainder of the farming eommunity is justified in asking that all duties should be rmoved from their implements. Reductions have been made on duties on farm implements during reeent years, and many are now admitted free, but if the pig and .poultry people succeed, consideration also should be given to the remainder of the farming eommunity.