-BIRMINGHAM GOES FAR
[To the Editor of THE SpEcr.trom] Sia,—Too little attention, it seems to me, has been aroused by the decision of the Birmingham City Council that " no article or manufactured materials produced or manufactured in any place other than the British Isles, India, or British Dominions beyond the seas, should be supplied by a con- tractor without the authority of the committee concerned:, The importance of the step taken by Birmingham lies, not so much in its immediate application, as in its relation to a stricter trend of public policy to be noted to-day in many European countries where it is now very difficult, and in some cases impossible, for a manufacturing subsidiary of a foreign company to obtain Government and Municipal contracts.
The question, in brief, which now arises, is not whether Birmingham is going too far but rather whether she has gone far enough. Should our municipalities refuse contracts -to companies which hre not nationally controlled'? In Germany —as in Italy—definite difficulties are placed in the way of trading by:non-German and lain-Italian concerns respectively. and similar restrictions apply :in many other countries. In. Spain, for instance, special advantages, are given to menu-, lecturing concerns of which two-thirds of. the board, •svitht, its chairman as managing director, are Spanish nationals and. 75 percent. of the capital is owned by Spaniards, and the attitude of the • Irish Free State is similar in tendency.
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