HC Deb 27 July 1903 vol 126 cc329-30
MR. HERBERT SAMUEL (Yorkshire, Cleveland)

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will grant the Return relating to the trade of foreign countries with British colonies and dependencies standing on to-day's Notice Paper.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, Leeds, Central)

A Return shall be prepared showing for the last available year the imports from foreign countries into the self-governing colonies, India, and the principal Crown colonies, distinguishing (a) principal articles, and (b) imports of food, raw materials and manufactured articles. This Return will cover that already promised to the hon. Member for the High Peak division, and it will afford materials from which any hon. Member can arrive for himself at the total value of the imports of articles which in his opinion cannot be supplied from the United Kingdom.

* SIR CHARLES DILKE

Will the items for Australia be added together. Up to the present time the figures are given for the separate colonies.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

I think so.

MR. D. A. THOMAS (Merthyr Tydvil)

Will the Return be only for one year?

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

Yes, and for that period it will take several months to prepare.

Appended is the Return referred to in the foregoing Question:—

Trade (Foreign countries with British colonies, &c.)—Address for Return showing, for the latest year for which statistics are available, the value of the imports from foreign countries into the British Colonies and Dependencies of the following articles, the colonies, &c., to be regarded as a whole, but each article to be given separately, viz.: Areca nuts, bacon and hams, beche-de-mer, beef (salted), bees-wax, birds nests, bran, broom-corn, butter, charcoal, cheese, coffee, copra, cotton (raw), curry-stuffs, eggs, extract of logwood, &c., flour, fodder, fruit (dried and preserved) fruit (fresh), gambier, grain and pulse, ground nuts, gums and resins, hides and skins, japan-ware, joss-sticks and joss-paper, lard, live-stock, manure (oil cakes), manure (guano), molasses and syrups, nutmegs, nuts (edible), oils (excluding linseed when distinguished), onions and garlic, opium, ores of shell, silk (raw), sugar, tapioca, tea, tin (unmanufactured), tobacco (unmanufactured), turpentine (spirits of), wines, wood and timber.