DOWNWARD TARIFFS

Hawera Star, Volume L, 26 March 1931, Page 5

DOWNWARD TARIFFS

AIM IN BRITAIN. NEGOTIATIONS TO CONTINUE. 111. Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright.!

LONDON, March £4. The President of the Board of Trade, Mr W. 'Graham, replying to House of Commons questions concerning the tariff truce and the. recent conference at Geneva, said he had repeatedly emphasised that he always regarded the commercial convention not as an end in itself, but as affording an opportunity for further negotiations with a view to securing a reduction in the European customs tariffs. These negotiations would continue. The Government "clid not minimise the difficulties, but still believed that a downward move in tariffs was desirable and would continue to do everything possible to accomplish it.

Asked which Governments had continued to raise their tariffs after approving the recommendations of the 1927 economic conference to the effect that world economic development was being retarded by tariff walls, Mr Graham replied that since the conference tariff increases or substantial importance had been introduced by Australia, Bulgaria, 'Chile, 'Czechoslovakia, Fin-’ land, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Persia, Poland and Portugal. The Parliamentary Secretary for the Treasury in the House of Commons today refused to recommend to the Government that a Cabinet committee should be established to make immediate inquiry into the possibility of adopting in Britain revenue producing tariffs, which" had recently been the. subject of much discussion among economists.