NO FOOD TAXES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 111, 7 April 1930, Page 7

NO FOOD TAXES.

WITHOUT REFERENDUM. MR BALDWIN’S PLEDGE. LONDON, April 5. Mr Stanley Baldwin, the Conservative leader, repeated his pledge that there would be no food taxes without a referendum. He said that the Conservatives would proceed with safeguarding the moment they were returned to office. They wanted a free hand with safeguarding where the Government considered it necessary for the protection of the labour of our o people against cheaper labour or inferior conditions, or against dumping by any countries. It was a weapon to use in negotiating treaties with protectionist countries in case of need and for retaliation if negotiations failed. The question of food taxes, Mr Baldwin continued, would only arise when the Imperial Economic Conference had threshed out a treaty between Great Britain and the Dominion. If the Dominions in exchange for substantial benefits to our manufacturing industries required corresponding benefits connected with foodstuffs, in consequence of which it would bo necessary to put taxation on foreign foodstuffs, then the Conservative Government would submit that treaty to the people of Great Britain, who would be free to vote aye of nay. Nothing could be more democratic.