DEBATE IN COMMONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 8, 7 December 1935, Page 7

DEBATE IN COMMONS.

SERIES OF SUBJECTS. RAW MATERIALS PROBLEM. (British Official Wireless.) Received December 7, 11.25 a.in. RUGBY, Dec. 6. The debate in the House of Commons was continued by the back benchers and dealt principally, with the “means test,” the situation in the coal industry, and agricultural policy. Mr Robert Boothbv spoke of increasing consumption as an alternative policy to restricting production and urged that the whole policy of agricultural subsidies should be revised in the light of experience. Replying for the Government, Lord Eustace Percy claimed that the Government’s policy in its broad lines was directed to increasing consumption. Other questions addressed to the Government in the debate included that of the distribution of colonial raw materials and the situation in Memel. Replying to the former, Sir Samuel Hoare repeated his Geneva assurance of readiness to investigate the whole question. He believed the problem was an economic and not political or territorial one. When it came to be investigated it would, he thought, l>e found certainly in the present conditions that the main problem , was the selling of raw materials rather than the buying- of raw materials. At the same time, there were these anxieties in the world, and since they existed thev had better be investigated. The Government were ready for such an investigation, but it must take place in a calm, dispassionate atmosphere. Mr R. A. Eden, in a brief reference to Memel, said he was happy to be able to confirm the information in the Press that the negotiations in the Memel territory had resulted in the formation of a directorate of four members. The Government regarded it as a good augury for the future and trusted that all the parties concerned would approach in a spirit of conciliation the difficulties which remained to be solved before the situation in the territory could be regarded as wholly satisfactory.