FRENCH QUOTAS

Evening Star, Issue 21632, 30 January 1934, Page 9

FRENCH QUOTAS

BRITAIN DISSATISFIED THREATS OF RETALIATION (British Official Wireless.) Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. RUGBY, January 29. (Received January 30, at noon.) In the House of Commons, while making a statement regarding the French quota restrictions, Mr W. Runciman (President of the Board of Trade) announced that the French Government bad been informed the British Government could not accept discrimination in favour of United States and Belgian goods. It had also been told that having regard to the grave ' interference with the trade of the United Kingdom, resulting from its new quota policy and the discrimination referred to, the British Government would very reluctantly take immediate retaliatory action by imposing additional duties on the range of French products unless within ten days of the intimation the quotas in force before January 1 were restored to their original level, and the new quotas imposed as from January 1 were similarly increased. Full power to impose such duties existed under the Import Duties Act. The attention of the French Government was also drawn to the grave impediment To British trade, resulting from the methods adopted for fixing quotas and their administration. The French Government had been informed that the British Government proposed to return to that matter at a later stage, when satisfaction in regard to the quantum of quotas had been obtained.

FRENCH PAPER’S ASSERTIONS PARIS, January 29. (Received January 30, at 11.30 a.m.) British official circles refuse to comment on the French newspapers’ declaration that the British Note demands full restoration of quotas, otherwise Britain would institute reprisals, and denounce the trade treaty.