PREPARING POLICY.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 1

PREPARING POLICY.

Cabinet Committees Set Up in London. DECISION IN FEBRUARY. United Press Assn.—By Electric Tel egraph—Copyright. (Received December 19, 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, December 18. According to present indications, the Prime Minister will announce the Government’s policy as soon as the Commons re-assemble in February. The various committees which Cabinet set up after its series of councils earlier this week will meet early in January, when the Prime Minister, who is in Scotland, and other Ministers, will have re-assembled after the Christmas holidays. The Government’s comprehensive policy will be formulated after these committees have prepared and examined the necessary detailed information. The Prime Minister arrived at Lossiemouth to-day. In an interview discussing the fiscal policy, he said that fair play and no favour was what everyone wanted in international trade relations, but encompassed by foreign subsidies, bounties and the competition of low social standards, the time had come when the position must be reconsidered. Britain was faced with the problem of self protection. In considering these important questions, he added, Cabinet harmony had been complete. The value of the average imports in recent months of articles covered in the third Board of Trade order under the Abnormal Importations Act was £2,620,870, making an estimated annual total of £31,450,440. The duty of 50 per cent ad valorem on sixteen classes of articles involved comes into operation to-morrow. The imports affected in the previous two orders amounted last year in value to £35,000,000.