UNEMPLOYMENT AND TARIFFS IN INDIA.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Under the heading " News of the Week " in your issue of November 30th you point out that unemployment is growing, and you state that war must be declared on it with the nation's entire fund of energy behind it. You then say this could be done successfully because it has been done once before during the Great War when, by utilizing the nation's energy, we produced sufficient munitions of war.
Right, but the munitions of war were not produced at a profit in open competition with other nations, and that is the point ; we must so arrange matters that we can work any industries at full pressure and sell what they produce at a profit. Then we can pay good wages to the operatives, a decent return to capital and we shall be able to replace obsolete plant. Rationalization only will not bring this about.
We want for the cotton trade, by far the most important trade in the country, a heavy tariff in India against China and Japan, a smaller tariff also in India against Italy, Czechoslovakia, Germany, &c., and bargaining power as far as England is concerned to reopen the markets which we have lost and to stop other countries expanding their trade.
You seem to infer that if we rationalized and supplied the industries with sufficient capital to bring their plant up to date, all would be straight and easy sailing, but that is not so, the industries would be working short time and making insufficient profits and could not keep up to date.—I am, [Does our correspondent seriously suppose that the peoples of India will in the future put on tariffs to suit Lancashire or any other part of Great Britain ? India's future tariff policy must be primarily adjusted to suit India's needs.—ED. Spectator.]
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