§ 12.35 a.m.
§ Captain WallaceI beg to move:
That the Import Duties (Substitution) (No. 1) Order, 1937, dated the thirteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, made by the Treasury under the Finance Act, 1933, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said thirteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, be approved.I am sure that hon. Members who seem to have been slightly perturbed by the increase of duty in the last Order will be delighted to hear that this Order means a reduction of duty. This is one of the cases in which a specific duty was substituted for an ad valorem duty under the terms of Section 16 of the Finance Act, 1933. The specific duty was first put on in May, 1934, at the rate of 5s. 6d. per cwt.—equal to 10 per cent. It was put up in November of that year to 7s. 3d. It has been difficult, for a variety of reasons, to alter it since then, but during 198 the last nine or ten months the value of imported pepper has been relatively stable—something between 40s. and 50s. per cwt. In these circumstances we propose—and the Advisory Committee proposed—as in duty bound, that the duty should be a specific duty of 4s. 6d., or the equivalent of 10 per cent.
§
Resolved,
That the Import Duties (Substitution) (No. 1) Order, 1937, dated the thirteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, made by the Treasury under the Finance Act, 1933, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said thirteenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, be approved.