§ Mr. DARBISHIREasked the President of the Board of Trade the amount of import duties imposed on British goods in Australia, Canada, South Africa, India, and New Zealand in the last financial year, and the amount of import duties imposed in this country on goods shipped here from those Dominions?
§ Lieut.-Colonel BUCKLEYThe duties collected in Canada on imports from the United Kingdom during the year ended 31st March, 1922, amounted to 23,585,155 dollars, or approximately £5,450,000 at the average rate of exchange for that period. These figures include duties collected on some goods not of United Kingdom origin although imported from the United Kingdom. The duties chargeable in New Zealand on the goods imported during 1921 from the United Kingdom, calculated at the rates of the present tariff, which came into force on 4th November of that year, amount to992W about £3,500,000. The duties collected in the Union of South Africa on goods imported from the United Kingdom during 1921 amounted to £3,500,000, approximately, according to calculations based on the published figures of imports and rates of duty. In the cases of Australia and India, I regret that no corresponding figures are available in the published accounts and that no estimates have been completed similar to those on which the figures for South Africa and New Zealand rest.
No information is available as to the amount of import duties imposed in this country on goods consigned from the Dominions. Practically all goods on which an import duty is chargeable are admitted into this country at a preferential rate of duty, provided they are consigned from the Empire, and are shown to be of Empire growth or manufacture; and the amount of duty collected on goods admitted to preference consigned from the Dominions named during the financial year 1922–23 was as follows:—
£ Australia … 270,119 Canada … 749,994 New Zealand … 2,305 Union of South Africa … 969,583 British India … 8,589,776