§ 63. Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs what further steps the Government is contemplating to intensify the effect of sanctions on the illegal regime in Rhodesia.
§ Mr. George ThomasAs the Prime Minister said on 6th April in answer to a Question on this subject, we are naturally considering all the time whether new measures are needed to tighten up sanctions. Having given the regime ample warnings in the past of the consequence of their actions, however, it is not our policy now to give them advance notice of fresh measures which we may propose to introduce in order to bring about a return to constitutional government in Rhodesia.—[Vol. 744, c. 448–51.]
§ Mr. Elystan Morganasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs (1) what proportion of this year's tobacco crop in Southern Rhodesia has been sold;
146W(2) what proportion of the Southern Rhodesia tobacco crop was sold last year;
(3) what proportion of the Southern Rhodesia tobacco crop, both this year and last year, has been purchased by the illegal Smith régime.
§ Mr. George ThomasBecause of the cordon of secrecy thrown round the Rhodesian tobacco industry last year, no precise figure of the tobacco crop sold can be quoted, but there is no doubt that the proportion was a low one. It was unlikely to have been much more than one-third of the total crop, and this was of course sold at very low prices.
This year's crop only began to reach the floors about a month ago and little of it can yet have been sold.
Both last year and again this year, the régime have had to abandon normal auctions. Under the new system the whole of the tobacco crop has to pass into the hands of the regime's Tobacco Corporation and attempts are then made to arrange sales. But even if the regime were to be able, under mandatory sanctions, to dispose of the same proportion of this year's crop as they did of the 1966 crop under voluntary sanctions, they would, by October, have tobacco worth more than £40 million in normal times still on their hands.