[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia,=Mr. Baldwin's handling of
this matter has been extremely weak, and when he appointed Mr. Winston Churchill, erstwhile a splendid advocate of freedom, to put in force some War-time Protectionist taxes and then add many new ones, Mr. Baldwin did a great deal to prejudice the party in the eyes of the people.
The serious matter is that all those taxes have affected the cost of living and the cost of production in industry. When you add to this the heavy rates and taxes on producers and merchants; you can see how difficult it is to compete in the open markets of the world, while the merchant is bled in Income Tak, and those terrible Death Duties, so that it fa impossible to accumulate a fund which can be used to extend and increase mercantile operations.
Engaged as I am in buying goods for consumption in South Africa, I see the immediate effect of all these handicaps in the increased quantities of competitive goods which I have to buy from Germany, Belgium, Italy and Czechoslovakia and from Japan. Your idea that the U.S.A. is our worst competitor does not agree with my. experience. In fact, high costs in the U.S.A. have .prevented competitive quotations for such lines as galvanized iron, which used to undersell English-made iron before the War.
- _Mr. Baldwin's Government has done so little for' economy that one despairs of them.—I am, Sir, &c., J. G. FRASER.
16 Chesterford Gardens, N.W. 3.
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