MOMENTOUS CHANGE

Evening Star, Issue 20980, 19 December 1931, Page 14

MOMENTOUS CHANGE

BRITAIN'S FISCAL POLICY COMMITTEE WORK PROCEEDING (British Official Wireless.) Press Association —By Telegraph Copyright. RUGBY, December 18. (Received December 19, at noon.) The value of the average imports in recent months of the articles covered in the third Board of Trade order, under the Abnormal-Importations Act, is £2,620,870, making an estimated annual total of £31,450,440. The duty of 50 per cent ad valorem on the sixteen classes of . articles involved comes into operation to-morrow. The imports affected by the previous two orders amounted last year in value to £30,000,000. . • . According to the present indications, the Prime Minister will announce the Government’s policy as soon as the House of Commons reassembles in February. The various committees which the Cabinet set up after its series of councils earlier this week will meet early in January, when the Prime Minister (who is in Scotland) and other Ministers reassemble after the Christmas holidays. The Government’s comprehensive policy will be formulated after these committees have prepared and examined the necessary detailed information. The Prime Minister arrived at Lossiemouth to-day. In an interview discussing the' fiscal policy, ho said that fail play and no favour was what everyone wanted in international trade relations, but, encompassed by foreign subsidies, bounties, and the competition of low social standards, the time had coine when the position must be reconsidered. Britain was faced with the problem of self-protection. In considering these important questions, he added, Cabinet harmony had been completed.