EMPIRE PRODUCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21529, 29 December 1931, Page 8

EMPIRE PRODUCE

NO DUTIES IMPOSED , GOVERNMENT’S INTENTIONS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 18. The motion to expedite the passage of the Government’s Anti-dumping Bill was carried last night by a majority of 345 and the Bill was read for a first time. In the course of the debate Mr HoreBelisha, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, announced that a preference of 100 per cent, would be extended to the Empire. Mr Runciman admitted that the procedure the Government were following was exceptional, but the circumstances were exceptional. Otherwise this legislation would have taken a fortnight’s parliamentary time to get through. He recalled that, even allowing for seasonal trade, there was. an enormous increase in imports in October and November. In the first eight months of 1031 the average monthly importation of class 111 goods was £20,600,000. In September the value of these imports had risen to £22,600,000; in October to £27,200,000, and in the 10 days’ period ended on November 10 the figures were at the rate of £35,000,000 per month. Mr Hore-Belisha (Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade), replying to the debate, said, the Government were not ipaking any permanent change in the fiscal system of the country in this Bill, which only operated for six months. They were dealing with the problem of abnormal trade. A dead set was being made Upon this country in anticipation of a 'permanent change in the fiscal system. Whether that change was to come or not, we must protect our own traders and our own currency in the meantime, 100 PER CENT.' PREFERENCE. A question about preference, he added, had been asked by Sir ‘Henry Page Croft. He would have no complaint of the treatment of the dominions. They were to have a preference.—(Loud cheers.) If he wanted to know the figure, it happened to be a preference of 100 per cent.— (Renewed cheers.) “The Government,” Mr Hore-Belisha concluded, “intend to act, and act resolutely, and I am proud to be serving under a President .of the Board of Trade who understands /this subject of trade and industry almost better than any other member of the House, and who is a man of broad mind and great resdlution.”—.(Ministerial cheers.) One of the sections in the Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties) Bill reads as follows: No articles which are Empire products within the meaning of this expression as used in sub-section (1) of section 8 of the Finance Act, 1919, shall be chargeable with duty under this Act. Another section which may have some interest to the dominions reads: — Subject to compliance with such conditions as to the security for the re-ex-portation of the articles as the Commisisoners of Customs and Excise may impose, this Act shall not apply t to articles imported for exportation after transit through the United Kingdom or by way of transhipment.