CONTROLLED IMPORTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1943, Page 4

CONTROLLED IMPORTS

Sir, —The Internal Marketing Division has been in the news lately—but what of the Ministry of Supply? All shopkeepers, importers, and merchants should study the schedule just issued on Eighth Period Restrictions of Imports, more particularly as the Minister of Supply (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) has just stated publicly that import restrictions' are here for good (assuming of course that the Labour Party is re-elected). There are 449 items (plus many sub-sections) in the Customs tariff, and the latest restrictions reveal: (1) Items which are not allowed to be imported total 340. (2) Items which are "controlled" and for which importers must apply for a permit to import total 215. (3) Items which the Ministry of Supply might agree to import for the importer total 115/ Import restrictions were first imposed before the war, and the schedules issued for each licensing period have grown and grown to the extent that those just issued reyeal that more than half the items in the Customs tariff are either restricted entirely or are controlled by the Ministry of Supply. Plow much of this business is handled by inexperienced clerks?—l am, etc.,

■MORE .CONTROL.