§ 9. Sir HERBERT SAMUELasked the President of the Board of Trade the nature of the Fiscal Convention signed at Oslo on 22nd December 1930, and of the protocol attached thereto; and what were the States which acceded to that Convention?
§ Mr. W. GRAHAMThe Treaty for Economic Rapprochement and a Protocol thereto were signed at Oslo on 22nd December, 1930, by delegates of the Netherlands; Belgium, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. I have up to the present no information that it has yet been ratified by any of these countries. The principal feature of the Convention is an undertaking to give at least 15 days notice before introducing any new or increased customs duty. If any of the other parties to the Convention feel that the proposed new or increased duty is harmful to their interests, they can make proposals for its alteration and in that case the minimum time that can elapse between the first announcement of the increased duty and its coming into force is one month. If on the expiration of this month, or after the failure of negotiations, the new duty is brought into force, the injured party can after 15 days denounce the Convention, either entirely, or in so far as its relations with the party to whose action it objects are concerned. I ought perhaps to add that there is a provision enabling new or increased fiscal duties whose immediate entry into operation might be necessary to be resorted to without notice. The Convention is valid for six months in the first instance, and then by subsequent tacit renewals for successive periods of six months. In the Protocol accompanying the Convention the signatories state their intention of continuing the collaboration which they have begun in the economic sphere, and of extending the principles of the Convention to other sides of their economic relations.
§ Mr. GRAHAMI think not. The terms of the plan are quite plain, and I think that from many points of view it has a good deal to recommend it.