Oct, 17. the book, and as it is holiday in Japan to-day the local speculators alto quiet and our market is view of your well-known. attitude on Protective Tariffs and on the disadvantages suffered by Free Trade Britain when attempting to bargain with foreign countries, may I draw your attention to the following ease, which affects both our trade and Mor labour problems, and is a matter of extraordinary' interest to exporters and manufacturers?
Japan has introduced a 100 per! cent. ad valorem "luxury" tari, ostensibly with the view of curbing imports and encouraging her ows trade, and of course of strengthening her present financial position.
That this new tax will produce an immediate decline in our exports to Japan is a foregone conclusion. Both Yorkshire and the Midlands are already feeling the first effects. Can-collations of orders have been receiv-
[ed in both Bradford and Birmingham, and the same applies to London Far Enst, merchants 'Where it was originally intended to place heavy orders for hardware. sundries, and fancy cloths for the forthcoming season, there now appears to be almost' a complete absence of demand, with the result that factories und mills, already working short hours or with reduced staffs, will find it dificult to maintain even such skeleton establishments 1 the Inow possess, and, sooner or later, wil find themselves obliged to theow! more out-of-works on the market, But this is not all.
Thanks to the' now practically defunct Anglo-'Japanese Conventional Tariff, there are certain articles, quoted by the Kobe correspondent of the "Mercantile Guardian," which are exempted from this new tax, such as paints, Tine yarns, cotton velvets, wool, wool Jand cotton goods, and bar, pig, and) galvanized iron. This exemption, or safeguard, already denounced, ceases. on March 10 of next year, when the Convention is abrogated. ' What there then to prevent the Japanese: Government adding these items to their 100 per cent. list From the Intest mail news from Japan there appears to be every' likelihood of this event taking planet Against this we can have nothing say, as every country has the right to protect her trade by such tariff and other arrangements ax she soos fit. Unquestionably though the abrogation of the Conventional Tariff will not only react disastrously on. our trade, but more seriously still on our rapidly increasing unemployment numbers. ingenuity of our present Government, already obsessed with Irish and Soviet "Treaty" problems.
Must we therefore resign ourselves, ina period of dwindling markets, to another being added to the list? More's the pity.
have already referred to the disastrous effects of the present uncertainty.
Canny buyers will not place large orders when the chances are that their ultimate importation becomes prohibi manufacturers, too, dare not keep their looms busy on special ized cloths for the Japanese markets when the chances they wil never be sold, Even if our trade is of small concern to Labour, it spelt with a small "1."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.