ARRESTS IN PUNJAB

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25092, 25 January 1947, Page 7

ARRESTS IN PUNJAB

Moslem League Leaders RAID OtT OFFICES IN LAHORE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 1.30 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 24. Police raided the Lahore offices of the Moslem National Guard, which is an organisation of Moslem volunteers trained on semi-military lines, reports Reuter’s correspondent at Lahore. Police also raided the Rashtriya Swayam Seva Sangh, which is a militant Hindu body. They arrested several Punjab Moslem League leaders for alleged opposition during the raid. Among them is Mr Firoz.khan Noon, who is a former member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council and a former High Commissioner in London. The police had earlier declared the two organisations unlawful. [Mr Forizkhan Noon is one of a number of leading Moslems who renounced their knighthoods last August,

“in token of their deep resentment of the attitude of the British,” when the Moslem League withdrew its acceptance of the British Cabinet Mission’s proposals.] Others arrested were: Mr Htikharuddin, former president <ff the Punjab Congr’ess, who resigned in September, 1945, because the Congress Party was not sympathetic enough towards the Moslem demand for self-determination. The Begum Jehanara Shah Nawaz, a member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, who recently visited Britain and the United States, where she spoke on the Moslem point of. view. The Nawab of Mamdot, President of the Punjab Moslem League, and a member of the Working Committee of the All-India Moslem League, who in August, 1946, gave up the title of Nawab of Lahore as a protest against the British Cabinet Mission’s plan. Sardar Sharkat Hyat Khan, who is the son of a former Punjab Prime Minister. It is reported that the police discovered more than 1000 steel helmets in their search. EMPIRE TARIFF PREFERENCES AMERICAN PRESSURE FOR ABOLITION

ANXIETY OF FORMER BRITISH MINISTERS (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 23. Describing American manufacturers’ demands for the elimination of all Emgire preference as humiliating, Mr L. . Amery, the former Secretary for India, in his president’s address to the annual meeting of the Empire Industries Association, said: “Submission to this demand would mean the abandonment of protection of our domestic industries and agriculture, and Britain would have to face unlimited competition in the Home market. “We are living in a world of sheer delusion if we think there is a ghost of a chance of our paying our way in a world of open cut-throat price competition,” he said.

Saying that he believed the Government had under consideration a Note from the United States Government asking that preferences on import duties between the countries of the British Empire should be abolished. Lord Woolton, the former Minister of Food, told the annual meeting of the Empire Industries Association that he was therefore even more apprehensive about Britain’s ability to repay the American loan.

“We must not be prepared to surrender the right of economic mutual tariff arrangements,” said Lord Woolton. “Changes must come with changing circumstances,, but I am certain it will be a bad day for Britain when it abandons the right to trade with the Empire under conditions which it determines.” BRITISH FOOD IMPORTS CESSATION OF BULK BUYING URGED (Special Correspondent N2.PA.) LONDON, January 23. Replying to Lord Henderson’s statement on food in the House of Lords. Lord Woolton, the former Minister of Food, claimed that the speech would have a depressing effect throughout the country, which had already listened to another depressing statement this week in the White Paper on the labour ‘situation.

He claimed that the time had come to drop the system of bulk buying, which was adopted in war time, and to adopt purchasing methods which would obtain better value for the money expended. Lord Woolton said he was convinced that the people wanted inducements, not exhortations to work harder, and he believed that an extra pound of meat weekly would give more stimulus to the miners than the contemplation of State-owned coal mines. The continued shortage of food, in his view, was hampering production and causing a great deal of unhappiness to housewives.

He suggested that the Minister of Food should do something to lighten this burden. The present system of bulk buying was keeping prices high and permitting overseas traders to make extortionate profits as in the case of a recent sale of linseed oil by Argentine interests.

It was high time that the people had a break in this debilitating austerity, declared Lord Woolton. If the Government would give the people more food and less restrictions the people could be trusted to achieve their own recovery. Lord Addison, Secretary of State for the Dominions, justified bulk purchasing by pointing out that this year Britain would be obtaining wheat from Canada at 35 cents a bushel under the world price, while favourable longterm contracts had been made with Australia, New Zealand, and the West Indies.

Lord Cherwell said that Britain was faced by the incontrovertible fact that in the first year of peace the people had less to eat than in the last year of the war. and’they were now halfway through the second year of peace. In spite of bumper harvests in practically every exporting country the 1 people were told that they would have