CONSERVATIVES MAKE SAFEGUARDING MOVE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19117, 9 July 1930, Page 1

CONSERVATIVES MAKE SAFEGUARDING MOVE.

MR BALDWIN DEMANDS DEBATE ON QUESTION. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received July 9, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, July 8. Following a meeting of leaders of the Conservative Party, Mr Stanley Baldwin and Mr Neville Chambe. lain have given the following notice of motion:—“This House, believing that a return to prosperity can best be promoted by safeguarding the Home markets against unfair foreign competition and by the expansion of the exports market by reciprocal trade agreements with the Empire overseas, regrets that the Government have reversed instead of extending safeguarding, and have arbitrarily excluded the House from considering the imposition of duties on foreign foodstuffs, devised to obtain equivalent advantages for British manufacturers and agriculture, in Empire markets and elsewhere." Mr Baldwin is demanding an early debate, which will definitely establish whether the Government is prepared to bring the matter up for discussion at the Imperial Conference in the autumn, and will also afford the frankest and most definite statement regarding policy on Empire economic unity. 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 well as papers advocating the Empire Free Trade policy, consider that in its phrasing it contemplates the adoption without referendum of the principle of taxation of foreign foodstuffs advocated by the Empire Free Traders. Orthodox Conservatives state that the aim of the vote is to elicit from the Government a pledge to enter the Empire Conference with an open mind and to discuss with the dominions the whole question of Imperial Preference.