CENSURE MOTION PLANNED

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1930, Page 13

CENSURE MOTION PLANNED

LITTLE HOPE OF SUCCESS

EMPIRE TRADE CONTROVERSY

MR. BALDWIN’S INTENTIONS

British Wireless. Rugby, July 8. A further development in the Empire •trade controversy has taken the form of a vote of censure upon :l>.e Government, which the Conservative ex-Min-isters last night decided to move at an early date in the House of Commons. The motion, iu the names of Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Neville Chamberlain, is phrased as follows: “That this House believes that a return to prosperity can best be promoted by safeguarding the home market against unfair foreign competition ■ and by expanding tilt export market by reciprocal trade agreements with the Empire overseas. It regrets that the Government has reversed the policy of safeguarding instead of extending it, and has arbitrarily excluded from consideration the imposition of duties upon foreign foodstuffs to obtain equivalent advantages for British manufactures and agriculture in Empire markets and elsewhere.’

There is no likelihood of the motion being carried, since the Liberals, will vote with the Government on this issue. While Conservative journals supporting Mr. Baldwin claim that the terms of the motion do not go beyond the policy he has already announced, Liberal journals, as weil a 6 the papers advocating the Empire free trade pclicy, consider that in its phrasing it contemplates the adoption without a referendum of the principle of the taxation of foreign foodstuffs advocated by the Empire free traders.

Orthodox Conservatives states the aim of the vote is to elicit from the Government a pledge to enter the Imperial Conference with an open mind and to discuss with the Dominions the whole question of Imperial preference.