Protection and Prices The chairman of the Council of the
Colour Users' Association had some pertinent observations to make on Tuesday on the effects of Protection in the dye-stuffs industry. The Dye-Stuffs Import Regulation Act was passed for ten years in the hope of enabling a national dye-stuffs industry to establish itself, capable after that period of holding its own in quality and price against foreign competition. At the end of 1930 that aim had not been realized and import prohibitions under the Act were continued. Now there is a 10 per cent. tariff in addition on such dye-stuffs as do come in by licence under the 1920 Act, even though no similar substances are produced at all in this country, and on top of that the principal British dye-stuffs makers have entered a cartel with .Continental manufacturers, with the result, it is alleged, of keeping up prices, which are said to have risen between 20 and 40 per cent. since the cartel was formed. The complaints of the colour users are not surprising. The Government, of course, is not responsible for the cartel development, but if users are to be prevented by a tariff from buying in a free market they are placed to that extent at the mercy of the cartels. If the facts are as the Colour Users' Association represents them there is a clear case for investigation by the Import Duties Advisory Committee, for this is precisely the way in which the import duties were not to be allowed to work.
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