MATTER OF SAFEGUARDING

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20076, 4 November 1930, Page 16

MATTER OF SAFEGUARDING

CONSERVATIVE PARTY POLICY. CTE.OK OCT* OMf CO*BI3POKD»ST.) LONDON, September 25. ! Mr Neville Chamberlain, M.P., speaking at a Junior Imperial League demonstration at the Crystal Palace, said:— "1 want to stress particularly the position of the Conservative Party in this matter of safeguarding, because it seems to me to be the only policy -which affords the prospect of immediate and substantial relief of the unemploymentquestion. It cannot be too clearly understood that it is not our intentionto. repeat that cumbrous, slow £tfid partial procedure which ire ' adopted in the experimental stage. ~ : ■ ■ "Tho new Government of Canada has brought in an emergency tariff, which is a tariff of a provisional character. Why should not we take a I leaf out of the Canadian book? It is all in the family. Why should not we in the first few months of our offie'e bring in an emergency tariff? It may be perhaps somewhat of a rough-and-ready kind, but it will give our Home manufacturers a breathing space while we enter into negotiations with overseas ■ countries, Dominions, and foreign nations, and make the use, which we never have yet made, of the bargaining j power which-we "have got in the best import markets in the world. It a disaster that the coming Imperial; Conference is not -under, the guidance of the Conservative Party, which would enter into it without prejudice or. inhibitions. '' They have given indication that they are contemplating a system ,of. import. boards. That is a kind of Socialism that might begin ■rath > the State purchase- of grain, "but which; would almost certainly end with the' complete * State control of the sale, purchase, manufacture and distribution of ' every kind of - : cereal. To . such a j proposition the Conservative • Party - would-offer the most unyielding opposition. ' would db so all the more because we are convinced that the objects can be arrived at without any of the disadvantages which attach to-, a scheme ■ of import boards. We would put our proposals to the Imperial Conference,. which, without taxes on foreign wheat, would " give -to the British, fanner a.guaranteed, market at a • guaranteed- price for his -wheat, "and give to the Empire farmer a large and more secure market for hi& wheat, and would still leave us with a margin which we" could. use _ for .negotiating- with those countries which are; not within the Empire, but where we have valuable interests. These proposals are what is known as the quota- system, which is simplicity itself, and provides that you lay down that every loaf baked in this country shall be composed of ascertain proportion of Home-grown wheat and a certain proportion, - which' can be gradually increased/ of Empire "wheat. This on yrhich we have now been working for some time, seems to me to offer perhaps the greatest contribution which has been made towards the problem of the development of inter-Imperial trade."