£75,000,000 Cut In Dollar Imports

Northern Advocate, 16 July 1949, Page 5

£75,000,000 Cut In Dollar Imports

BRITAIN ASKS COMMONWEALTH FOR

LONDON, Fri. (11.20 a.m.). —Britain is believed to have asked the Commonwealth Finance Ministers at today’s meeting to make immediate cuts in dollar imports from the United States t*nd Canada. It is understood that the Commonwealth Ministers were asked to consider suggestions for cutting dollar imports in the sterling area outside Britain at the rate of £75,000,000.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps) announced in the House of Commons yesterday that Britain would cut dollar imports at the rate of £100,000.000 ($400,000,000) a year pending a definite import programme to be decided in Washington in September. Britain’s visible imports from the dollar area in 1948 have been running at the rate of about £400.000,000. Imports from the rest of the Commonwealth, in the sterling area, have been at the rate of about £300,000.000. Cuts would affect New Zealand, Australia, Southern Rhodesia, India, Pakistan, Ceylon and British colonies. South Africa, which is in the sterling area, looks after most of her own dollar requirements, meeting them largely by gold sales. Canada is not in the sterling area.

Eire, Burma, Irak and Iceland are also in the sterling area, and Sir Stafford is expected to have separate talks with them on the dollar-sterling problem.

Commodities most likely to be affected by cuts by Commonwealth sterling countries are petrol, motor vehicles, machinery, newsprint and consumer goods.