QUOTA DEMAND

Taranaki Daily News, 21 March 1934, Page 7

QUOTA DEMAND

JAPANESE COMPETITION EXTREME LANCASHIRE VIEWS SOME PROTECTION LIKELY INDUSTRY ANSWERS CRITICS MODERN METHODS USED By Telegraph—Press Assn.-Copyright. London, March 19. The extreme Lancashire members in the House of Commons demand immediate prohibitive duties and quotas on Japanese goods throughout the Empire, states the Daily Mail. The Cabinet is not perturbed, but Mr. Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, may advise that a promise be made of a certain amount of protection provided the manufacturers undertake to reorganise the industry and modernise business methods.

Lancashire industrialists declare that no amount of reorganisation will enable competition with Eastern wages and standards and the depreciated yen. Mr. H. G. Spicer, pioneer of the “More Looms Policy,” says that Lancashire has one of the most highly organised industries in the world. No foreigner working mills in England under English conditions could compete with English prices. The Japanese were using looms Lancashire discarded 20 years ago. The Manchester Guardian gives prominence to the comment of the Osaka newspaper Mainichi, which, assuming on March 3 that a breakdown in the cotton negotiations was inevitable, declared: Japan is well prepared for the consequences and we must expect more barriers. A strong point in our favour is that we can always boycott Australian wool if the Empire boycotts Japanese goods. If Britain fights harder wo will only have to step on the gas.” ,