TARIFF POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 26, 1 February 1932, Page 7

TARIFF POLICY

EXPLANATION OF DELAY

RECONCILING CABINET

ATTITUDE OP LEADEES

United Press Association—By Electric Tele-

graph— Copyright.

LONDON, 30th January.

In the absence of the Prime Minister, Mr. Mac Donald, the Lord President of tho Council, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, prqsided at a meeting of the Cabinet at which the general terms of the Tariff Bill were approved. Viscount Snowden was absent. Sir Herbert Samuel, Sir Archibald Sinclair, and Sir Donald Maclean, who were present, did not participate in the discussion. Addressing the Empire Industries Association, Mr. Baldwin said that there lir cl been delay owing to the necessity of permitting the investigation agreed upon when the Liberals joined the National Government. They were now at the point a Conservative Government would have reached three months earlier, otherwise the Government was proceeding along the lines that had been adopted by the Conservatives. In a speech in his constituency for the first time since the General Election, the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, referred to the Cabinet. Ho declared that the world was still creaking and cracking with problems producing a position transcending party interests. "Differ as we may," he said, "Cabinet to-day is more determined than ever to face national problems as a united body." Replying to criticisms that the Government did not possess a reparations policy, Mr. Mac Donald declared that the Government had stuck to its policy right through, and was going to stick to it until the error was wiped off the history of Europe. "Britain's policy is a return to economic sanity," he said. Mr. Mac Donald emphasised that the repayment of thirty millions on 25th January was a great triumph. The condition of sterling showed that the world believed in Britain's honesty

"Tariffs must not raise the cost of living or create tariff walls," he added. '' On the contrary, we must bring the walls down. Moreover, tariffs must not increase the cost of production, so hampering exports, or induce inefficiency."