43. Mr. SHIRLEY BENNasked the President of the Board of Trade if, on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Commercial Intelligence, he is arranging for the formation by His Majesty's Trade Commissioners in the self-governing Dominions of extensive collections of samples of hardware, hollow-ware, and tools of foreign manufacture which compete on a large scale in those Dominions with similar goods of the United Kingdom, and intends exhibiting them in England; and, if so, whether he will consider the advisability of extending these exhibitions to foreign manufactured articles imported into the United Kingdom, accompanied with detailed information as to the country of manufacture, price, and other matters affecting the trade?
Mr. ROBERTSONThe answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Manufacturers in this country are in general fully cognisant of the imported manufactures which compete with their own products in the United Kingdom market, and Government action in the direction suggested in the last part of the question would I think be resented, as tending to advertise the competing foreign products.