Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1932. BRITAIN'S POWERFUL LEVER

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 40, 17 February 1932, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1932. BRITAIN'S POWERFUL LEVER

From the great resources at its command the National Government was wise to select in Mr. Walter Runciman a Free Trade Minister for the introduction of the first of its restrictive measures for the balancing of trade, and to entrust to his Free Trade Parliamentary Urider-Seere-tary, Mr. Hore-Belisha, the secondary responsibility for its conduct. But on passing from the Abnormal Importations Bill to the much more difficult and far-reaching problems of the Imports Duties Bill, the weight has been properly transferred to Ministers representing the Conservatives, whose policy it embodies, and who command an overwhelming majority in the House. If the choice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to move the Government's proposals was officially inevitable, it must be remembered that it-was very largely, if ■not chiefly, Mr. Neville Chamberlain's special fitness for this task that ensured his appointment. Major Elliot, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who moved the second reading of the Bill on Monday, is less well known. Emerging from the War as a doctor with a distinguished record, he entered politics for the first time at the Armistice election of 1918, and his rise has been rapid. So far as the condensed report of his second reading speech enables one to judge, Major Elliot fully deserved the honour of, his selection for the discharge of so grave a responsibility.. It is hardly possible that evert Lord Snpwden could have desired a more plausible or more succinct statement of the Protectionist position, or that he has ever heard one that offers fewer openings to the ordinary logic of the Free Trader, than the single sentence in which Major Elliot's six points are summarised in the Official Wireless report: — The Government sought by this measure to correct the balance of payments, to check the depreciation of tho pound, to secure freedom of trade by offering advantages to other countries jii return for advantages they might g^ve Britain, to have an instrument to meet 'discrimination against the British, to encourage the British people to secure a reasonable share of their markets, and to-fortify the finances of the country by a not unduly high but a widely spread revenue' duty. The caution and the moderation and the circumspection of this statement present a striking contrast both to the bull-at-a-gate style in which Lord Beaverbrook dashes at these complicated and perilous problems and to the crass absurdities about bursting cargoes by which High Commissioners and others have recalled Mr. Lloyd George's Utopian picture of the bulging corn-bins of Russia. On his first two points Major Elliot might reasonably claim the support of Sir Herbert Samuel, and if they were not avowedly parts of a permanent scheme he would probably get it. These two objects—"to correct the balance of payments" and "to check the depreciation of the pound"—are at any rate within the scope of the Government's mandate as interpreted by Sir Herbert himself. In a speech delivered at Bradshaw just a fortnight before the election he said: "If we find that a tariff is necessary and no other means are possible to restrict imports and redress the balance of trade, then.a tariff we must have to meet the emergency." So thoroughly had Sir Herbert Samuel and his party observed the spirit of this undertaking that only a single Liberal of any stripes—and we cannot say which—voted against either the second or the third reading of the Abnormal Importations Bill. And even in his candid' second-reading speech on the present Bill Sir Herbert said: "While prepared to accept Protection as a means to reorganisation, he would reject it as an end in itself." But if yesterday's report that the Samuel Liberals have tabled a rejection motion is correct, they are not discriminating at this stage between the different parts of an essentially protective tariff. So far, however, as the Bill is concerned, the effect will be nil, for there are only 65 National Liberals all told, and 36 of them will follow Sir John Simon in supporting the Bill in all its stages. But a less undiscriminating hostility on the part of the. other Liberals might have eased the strain in the Cabinet and have slightly weakened the cry of the tariff die^ hards that "Samuel must go." In the two objects which he has wisely put first—the adjustment of the trade balance and the checking of Lhe fall

of the pound—Major Elliot has at any rate emphasised the broadest and most urgent grounds for the Bill as an emergency measure. And there is a third object which he has stated with a moderation calculated to conciliate the Free Traders, namely: "To fortify the finances of the country by a not unduly high but a widely-spread revenue duty," and which might have succeeded with some of them if it had been restricted to the present emergency. It is certainly a ground which will carry great weight in the country, even if the suggested reduction of the income tax by the 6d which Mr. Snowden added to it in September seems too good to;be true.

Even when he is dealing with the strictly protective aspect as distinguished from the trade balance and revenue, aspects of his Bill the same winning moderation is conspicuous in Major Elliot's, advocacy. The objects of ;;hi? tariff policy are, first, "to secure freedom of trade by offering advantages to other countries in return for advantages they might give Britain"; arid, secondly, to meet any discrimination against Britain by retaliatory duties. A protection which* promises free, or at any rate freer, trade by persuading or compelling other countries to reduce tlieir barriers is a policy which should command the support of Protectionists and Free Traders alike, and so it would if there was a sufficient guarantee behind the promise. The Free Traders allege that discriminations and retaliations have been far more effective in raising duties than in reducing them, and it „is common ground that the multiplying and the raising of Europe's tariff barriers since the War have seriously aggravated her economic distress. It is, however, possible that Britain may succeed where others have failed. The result will depend, not upon the letter of the.Bill but the spirit in which it is worked by the Advisory Committee tp be set up under it and by the Government. Meanwhile, the Government is surely right in its belief which Major Elliot mentions "that Britain with its huge markets has a more powerful lever under the Bill than any other country;" and the profound impression that both this Bill and its predecessor have made in Paris and in Washington indicates that foreign countries are not blind to the fact. Administered with the appreciation of the responsibilities and the risks involved which is revealed in the speeches of Mr. Baldwin and Major Elliot, the great experiment will give Britain a great chance.