Growers.

Bonus For Papuan

At Heavy Cost to Australian Rubber Consumers.

THE outcome of the recent conference in Melbourne between the Hon. E. C.

Harris and the Hon. Arthur Jewell, representing the Papuan rubber growers on one hand and representatives of Aus tralian rubber manufacturers on the other is shown by the new tariff schedule announced by the Minister for Trade and Customs (Mr. White) at Canberra on March 8.

Most of the changes in the new schedule are designed to bring it into closer conformity with the Ottawa Agreement and are reductions in duty on Empire goods. The exception is Pa puan rubber on which a duty of 4d. per lb. has now been fixed.

Foreign-grown rubber has been subject to this duty for some time as a measure of protection for the growers in Papua, and the manufacturers in Australia, working under enormous handicaps of taxation in various forms, were dismayed when this new one was added. They ap proached the Government with proposals for relief; and finally decided to cease purchasing Papuan rubber.

Following the special visit to Mel bourne and Canberra by Messrs. Harris and Jewell, of the Papuan Legislative Council, and their conferences with manufacturers, the question was exam ined by the Government and, as the im position of the 4d. a lb. duty on Papuan rubber would remove the manufacturers’ difficulties, without creating a new one for the Government, it was decided to impose it. The amount collected in duty

on Papuan rubber will be returned to the Papuan growers through the admin istration as a grant-in-aid. Theoretic ally, the Papuan growers will be better off than formerly; the rubber manufac turers’ complaints are largely met; and there will be no loss of revenue to the Government which already has been re ceiving over half a million per annum in rubber duty.

Other Products.

The tariff schedule introduced last Oc tober to implement the Ottawa Agree ment imposed duties on certain products of New Guinea and Papua. Though they are produced only in a small way, their only market is in Australia. The present Papuan and New Guinea Customs Tariff Preference Act exempted from duty cer tain tropical products which were duti able under the 1921-30 tariff. It was, therefore, proposed to add to the present list of exemptions the following goods upon which duties under the general tariff had recently been imposed:— Areca nuts, cocoa beans (raw), cocoa shells (raw), essential oils, namely, massoi oil, gin ger (dry, unground), sago and tapioca (not Oeing packed for household use), spices (unground), namely, cardamom, chillies, cinnamon, cloves, mace nutmegs, pepper pimento, vanilla beans.

This resolution places these products of Papua and New Guinea in the same position as they were in before the in troduction of the tariff schedule last Oc tober. Mr. Roland Green, M.P., took up this matter with the Government imme diately the terms of the Ottawa Agree ment were published.

EDITORIAL NOTE. —The arrangement has all the usual, earmarks of the usual political trick ery. The bottom fell out of the copra market, and Papua was thrown back on rubber. Rubber prices fell calamitously, and Papua faced bankruptcy. The Lieut.-Governor (Sir Hubert Murray) appealed to the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth imposed a duty of 4d. per lb. on all foreign-grown rubber, thus allowing the Papuan growers to sell their product in the Australian market at a price between 3d. and 4d. per lb. better than world parity. This saved Papua; but the burden thus placed on Australian rubber consumers (as disclosed by Customs returns) was not less than £500,000 per annum. Naturally, the rubber trade howled.

It was described as a “very awkward situation” ; but it was solved in the good, old-fashioned way—by giving John Taxpayer another kick in the neck. The 4d. duty was extended to Papuan rubber; which means that Australian rubber consumers will now pay the half-million or so which they formerly paid on foreign rubber, plus about £37,500, being 4d. per lb. on Papuan rubber exports to Australia, which are about 1,000 tons per annum. It would have been more practical, and very much more honest and, above all, it would have shown some con sideration for the Australian people, if the Fed eral Government had resolved, Instead, to re move the unjustifiable rubber duty altogether, and pay Papuan rubber-growers a bonus of 3d. per lb. Australia would have had to pay £30,000 p.a. as bonus, but would have been relieved of an utterly indefensible impost of half a million annually. If the foregoing repre sents the arrangement made in Australia by Messrs. Harris and Jewell, they certainly have earned the thanks of the rubber-growers of Papua: but they would be well advised to re main out of reach of the taxpayers of Australia until the memory of the “arrangement” has died away.

On March 15, the anniversary of the “Calliope Gale” at Apia in 1889, was commemorated in Sydney by a broadcast description and dramatised version of the sea epic. The sound effects and other details were remarkably realistic.