COTTON DUTIES

Evening Star, Issue 21811, 29 August 1934, Page 7

COTTON DUTIES

AUSTRALIAN TARIFF LANCASHIRE COMMENT Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyrlgi. LONDON, August 28. The ‘Manchester Guardian,’ in an editorial, says: “It is fairly certain that the Australian Cabinet’s attitude to cotton duties is governed purely by electioneering considerations. It certainly never entered the heads of the Lancashire cotton leaders and provision dealers, who threaten a boycott that they were taking sides in dominion polities. The Federal Government is trying to buy off the primary producers of Queensland, or some of them, and a section of the manufacturing interests in Victoria and New South Wales concerned with cotton. The argument that counted for most is that British goods must b* kept out or made a prohibitive price to enable Queensland farmers to find an assured market for their cotton. Self-sufficiency in manufactures and an expanding market in Britain are incompatible. To attempt self-sufficiency in new fields will provoke British retaliation against Australian exports, and it seems about_ as bad a business policy as the Australian Government could pursue. After the election,, perhaps, reasou may dawn.’’ FEELING STILL UNAPPEASED LONDON, August 29. (Received August 29, at Ip.m.) The ‘ Daily Telegraph’s ’ Manchester correspondent say that although Lancashire welcomes the cotton concessions mitigating hardships due to the cancellation of many orders, feeling against the new duties is unappeased. A joint committee of the cotton trade organisation meets on Thursday to discuss further action.