CLEAR STATEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 57, 8 March 1930, Page 9

CLEAR STATEMENT

BALDWIN'S NEW POLICY

HOW CHURCHILL SEES IT

POOD TAX BEFEEENDTJM

British Official Wireless.

RUGBY, 6th March

Mr. Winston Churchill, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the late Conservative Government, has given full support to the declaration made on Tuesday by Mr. Baldwin, the Conservative ex-Prime Minister, on fiscal policy. ■ Writing to his constituents, Mr. Churchill says: "I have always been opposed to the protective taxation of food for the purpose of uniting the British Empire, because it seems to me that any such policy, if enforced by a single party, would be liable to violent reversals most dangerous to Imperial concord. But the course which ' Mr. Baldwin has now proposed commands my earnest support. EMPIRE CONFERENCE FIRST. "The policy of the Conservative Party is that, if and when we obtain power, we shall call a conference of representatives of all parts of the Empire, at which food duties in return for reciprocal advantages to our manufacturing exports will be discussed in perfect freedom. If a good plan results from tho labours of this conference, it will be submitted by referendum to the direct vote of the wholo electorate, who will then be able to adopt it or reject it. It seems to, me that this is not only the best way but the only way of effectively advancing towards an economic or fiscal unity of the Empire. It liberates tho cause that wo all have at heart from the thraldom of party strife and raises it to the high platform of national appeal." SUCCESS OF SAFEGUARDING. Mr. Churchill went on to declare that hero at home the success of safeguarding in carefully-selected industries to which it had been applied justified its extension freely to industries of all kinds. He added that the proceeds of the new safeguarding duties and also of revenue duties upon finished or nearly finished manufactured foreign imports might bo used to give a measurp of security to British agriculture. Ho would, however, not anticipate the statement to be made shortly by Mr. Baldwin upon this subject further than to say that a procedure by way of a minimum guarantee on certain crops and the prohibition of import under license of subsidised or dumped foodstuffs must be our main immediate remedies for agricultural distress. •■. ■