The Press WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1946. Import Control

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24905, 19 June 1946, Page 6

The Press WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1946. Import Control

l A good deal may safely be conceded to the Prime Minister’s claim, in his report on behalf of the Parliamentary section to the Labour Party conference, that the development and diversification of manufactures are necessary if the country is to maintain an increased population, keep it fully employed, and safeguard the standard of living. He advanced the claim, however, without suggesting that measures to promote and diversify manufactures can very easily be framed or administered in such a way as to impoverish rather than enrich, to make it harder and not easier to sustain a larger population at a given standard of living. These measures are seldom or never devised and applied without solemn—and sometimes quite sincere—assurances that the prime objects of economy, efficiency, and productivity are not to be compromised or forsaken; but they are assurances much more easily given than fulfilled, especially in respect of measures designed to protect industry by restrictive control. When the Prime Minister lauds the policy of import control, for instance, because it safeguarded the Dominion’s “ constructive financial *• policy ” and because it “ encour- ‘ aged the growth of manufactur- “ ing ”, this truth should be borne in mind. He is moving dangerously near to praise of economic isola tionism. Condliffe and Stevenson, in their 1.L.0. study of “The Com- ‘ mon Interest in International Eco“nomic Organisation” (1944), had something significant to say on this point:

The very mechanisms of import control are selective. Such imports are allowed as suit the purposes of the controllers. Decisions in this regard—whether the imports are foods, raw materials, or manufactures—are decisions as to the kind of production and employment desired within the country. They lead also to organisation of the domestic industries, usually by some form of cartellisation. Domestic control so fostered, however effective it may be in promoting the political purposes of the Government, involves some measure of impoverishment, some decline in real levels of living. This may take such forms as lowered quality and limited choice of consumer’s goods, increased personal taxes or restricted leisure, rather than reduction of money incomes; but the lowering of living levels is very real.

When the Government again submits its policy to Parliamentary review, as it soon must, it should be pressed, more closely than it has been, to demonstrate the reasons why it holds to import control, not as an emergency measure but a° an instrument to reshape the country’s economy. It should be pressed to show what advantages it expects to gain, offsetting those of freer trade, freer competition, and effective specialisation.. How the unprotectable export industries are to be safeguarded against rising costs should be convincingly explained, if it can be. The argument tljat full employment cannot be maintained otherwise than by developing manufactures behind the protection of import control ought to be thoroughly searched, especially for evidence that a full employment policy based on this restrictive principle will work as well as a full employment policy based on the freest possible international exchange of goods and services.