[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In your article headed
" Safeguarding for Iron and Steel," in your issue of 18th inst., you suggest that the argu- ment that " the more an industry produces the more cheaply can it produce " cannot " survive the strain of experience." And yet is it not a fact that in every industry which has so far been safeguarded, selling prices have been lowered— or at any rate not increased ?
You go on to say that the cry of " Dearer Raw Materials" will be raised in exactly the same way as was the cry, " Dearer Food." It stands to reason that a duty on food must mean dearer food, for we cannot produce enough food to feed ourselves. I know nothing whatever about the iron and steel trade, but has anyone ever suggested that we cannot produce enough iron and steel for our own requirements ?
Why not silence all the fears of free traders, by seeing that control of price goes with the grant of safeguarding We have tribunals which regulate the maximum charges for electricity supply and for railway transport. Let us similarlY regulate the selling price of any commodity which seeks and obtains a safeguarding duty.—I am, Sir, &c., A SAFEGUARDEE.
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