§ Mr. COURTHOPEasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Indian tariff imposes an ad valorem duty of 5 per cent. on all imported hosiery and woollen shawls, both British and foreign; whether there is any countervailing Excise duty on Indian hosiery produced in the factories of Bombay, Cawnpore, Dhariwal, Amritsar, Bangalore, and other Indian industrial centres; and, if not, whether this import duty is found to have any protective effect on those Indian factories?
§ Captain NORTON(for the Master of Elibank): The answer to the first question as regards woollen hosiery and woollen shawls is in the affirmative. No countervailing Excise Duty is levied on the product of Indian woollen mills. The Indian woollen mill industry is on quite a small scale, and shows no signs of rapid expansion. The protective effect of the import duty is, therefore, necessarily matter for conjecture.