BRITISH FREE TRADE

Evening Star, Issue 19616, 23 July 1927, Page 4

BRITISH FREE TRADE

PORTS OPEN TO WORLD THE LEAST PROTECTIVE TARIFF NO NATION PRIVILEGED. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright; LONDON, July 21. A statement of the British Government’s attitude towards the‘find in gs of the Genova Economic Conference was made by tho President of the Board of Trade (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister) in the House of Commons last night. He said that long before the conference took place Britain had moved on all tho lines of policy which the conference recommended Their ports wore free to all the world. Foreign Nationals /were free to trade, and received national treatment when theycamo. The British tariff was tho least protective in the world, excluding, as .was fair, revenue duties which were countervailed by excise. Such duties qs could bo held to have any protective element, covered only 2 or 3 per cent, of the total imports. In the British administration there was no sort of discrimination or manipulation by which one country had the advantage against another; nor were British nationals dealt with differently from the nationals of any other country; nor was any privilege accorded to State enterprise In the sphere of international action Britain had tried to carry equal treatment'as far as possible. She had been active in making international conventions. and had been more active than any other country in the world in their ratification. At the Diplomatic Conference in tho autumn to try to .arrive at a convention for tho prohibition of import restrictions, Britain would most certainly bo in tho forefront. He hoped that the countries’ representatives meant what they had Said at tho Geneva Conference regarding the necessity for Frectradc. It was not very long after tho conference concluded that an embargo was put ou tho import of British coal by France, which was plainly contrary to the recommendations. There was at the present moment ponding in France a new tariff proposal, which was before tho Chamber of Deputies. Ho hoped most sincerely that in the Anglo-French negotiation? now. proceeding something of the spirit of the Genova Conference might be realised. The Government was only too anxious to see progress made by treaty and through the machinery of the League of iNations. It wits ou such lines that, if there was real sincerity, practical advances would be made.