§ 78. Mr. HARLANDasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that, as the outcome of the tariff proposals which the Indian Imperial Assembly is now engaged in debating, the Indian Tariff Board estimates that, not including heavy steel rails and railway wagons, to be excluded from India under bounty proposals, India's imports of mild steel will undergo between now and March, 1927, a reduction of 218,000 tons, valued at some 2i millions sterling; and, if so, whether he is modifying his estimates of unemployment in the United Kingdom to accord with the probable effects of India's action on the market from which she derives two-thirds of her steel supplies?
§ Mr. SHAWI have seen the estimate of the Indian Tariff Board, which appears to be based on the assumption that under the proposed tariff the total consumption in India of the materials referred to will be approximately the same in 1926–7 as it is to-day, and that the Indian production will be largely increased owing to the 1462 enhanced prices arising from the tariff. I doubt whether this is a safe basis on which to make estimates of unemployment in Great Britain.