THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1928 PROTECTION IN VIEW

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 198, 4 August 1928, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1928 PROTECTION IN VIEW

£N order to understand aright what the British ’Prime Minister, as reported in one of to-day’s cables, had to say with regard to the “safeguarding of industries” and his Government’s policy there anent, we have to cast back to,the general election of 1922. The Conservative or Unionist Party, under the late Mr. Bonar Law, was then returned with an absolute majority of somewhere about 80. ’ When in the following May, Mr. Bonar Law resigned Mr. Stanley Baldwin was chosen by the party to take his place as Prime Minister. The latter soon came to the conclusion that, having regard to the competition of other countries not only paying lower wages but fenced round with high tariffs, something in the way of a protective policy, even if only temporary, was essential if Britain’s industrial life was to be restored and preserved. With quite a full appreciation of the grave risks he was running in a country of predominant free-trade inclinations, and much against the wishes of a good number of his parliamentary supporters, he sought and obtained a dissolution towards the end of the same year so that he could place his views before the electors and let them decide. Though it had been made dear that food-stuffs were not to be affected, the Liberal and Labour parties bruited abroad the cry of dear food and the like so successfully that the electorates took fright. Tn the result Mr. Baldwin’s following in the House was reduced from 346 to 258, thus leaving him in a decided minority as against the aggregate of the two Opposition parties, of which

the Labour had scored 193 and the Liberal 158, the other six members being classed as Independent.

As being still the strongest party in the House, the Conservatives carried on for a while, but only to be supplanted, on a combined Labour-Liberal vote, in January, 1924, by the first British Labour Administration, under Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. That Ministry, with the rather shaky support of the Liberals under Mr. Lloyd George, lasted till the following October, when, deserted by the Liberals, it was forced to seek a dissolution and another general election was held on the 29th. of the same month. During the campaign for that election Mr. Baldwin stated that, having at the previous election ascertained the feeling of the people on the subject of protection, he would abandon jt for the time being and gave, a definite pledge that, during the life of the coming Parliament, no move in that direction would be made by his party. Thus divested of the embarrassment that had put them out of office, the Conservatives were returned with a stronger majority than ever, no less than 413 in a House of 615.

While never renouncing his belief in the urgent need for some measi.ie of protection, Mr. Baldwin has stood religiously to his election pledge. The only material steps that have been taken in the way of imposing fresh import duties have been under the provisions of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, which was passed by the Coalition Government as far back as 1921, and which no one has ever sought to have repealed. This conferred upon the Government for the time being power to impose duties deemed necessary for the preservation of “key” industries against unfair outside competition and for the prevention of the “dumping” of the products of other Indus tries. But even with regard to this power the present Government has been exceedingly chary in exercising it, Mr. Baldwin being determined that there should be no suggestion that he was evading his pledge through a side channel. So conscientious, indeed, has he been in this respect that he has brought down upon him much adverse criticism from those who were loudest in condemning his earlier protective proposals. The fact of the matter is that very many of those, even among the Labour Party, who in 1923 helped to put Mr. Baldwin out of office arc now convinced, by the bitter teaching of five years’ further experience, that he was right. But, as a matter of entirely permissible political tactics, he does not think the time has yet come for him to declare his intentions with regard to his platform at the next genera! election. That will probably not take place for at least another year yet, and by that time the lesson he wishes to teach will have sunk jet more deeply in. This was indicated in a recent speech hy Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Minister of Health. He said that he knew of many who, a few years ago, regarded duties on foreign imports with horror, but were now among those actually demanding their imposition. Despite this, however, he stressed the need for moving cautiously towards the time “when once more we can review the situation in the light of the experience we have gained and introduce measures that are likely to command the general approbation of the electors.” Mr. Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir W. Joynson Hicks, Home Secretary, both rather loquacious, have evidently been talking with less circumspection and foreshadowing policy a little more definitely. But Mr. Baldwin himself refuses just now to be drawn into any explicit declaration, though we may be sure that, when the right time comes, he will have no hesitation in clearly defining his proposals for the electors to accept or reject as best pleases them. Meantime, their education is to go on.