§ Sir F. THOMSONasked the President of the Board of Trade which countries in Europe have imposed or raised duties against British goods since Great Britain signed the Tariff Truce; and in what countries in Europe proposals to impose or raise duties on British goods are now under consideration by the legislature?
§ Mr. GILLETTIncreases of duties since March, 1930, in countries which signed the Commercial Convention or Tariff Truce have not, generally speaking, been of substantial importance to the trade of the United Kingdom, the most important perhaps being those recently introduced by Finland and those resulting, in Austria and Germany, from the revision of the Commercial Treaty between those two countries. In European countries which did not sign the Convention the most important increases since last March have been the general increase in Bulgaria resulting from the raising of the co-efficient for converting gold rates into paper, and certain increases in Spain, together with those resulting in Hungary and Czechoslovakia from the recent lapse of the Commercial Treaty between those countries. Other increases of duty have taken place in European countries (including Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Poland), which have mainly effected agricultural products and foodstuffs or have been in other respects of minor importance so far as United Kingdom interests are concerned. Moreover, in some cases increases in certain duties have been offset by decreases in others. As regards proposals for increases the chief cases of which I am aware are those contained in
- (1) the Tariff Bill which is understood to be about to be submitted to the Latvian Legislature which provides for substantial increases of duty on
48 many articles of importance to United Kingdom trade, and - (2) a Bill now before the French Legislature for increasing the duties on certain kinds of fish and a few other articles.