An answer which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is reported
as giving to Commander Gurney Braithwaite in the House on Tuesday demands public attention. Commander Braithwaite raised again the Chancellor's singular and shabby action in agreeing that the tourist allowance for travellers in,.for example, France should be the equivalent of 150 dollars, and then translating that into English money as £50, whereas the real equivalent, at the exchange rate of 2.80, which Sir Stafford himself fixed, is £53 11s. 5d. Asked whether he adhered to his statement made on May 23rd that £50 was " broadly equivalent " to 150 dollars, the Chancellor is reported as answering: " Yes. I certainly do." He declined to agree that this meant mulcting the British tourist of over £3 10s. So Sir Stafford persists in applying a fictitious exchange-rate of 3 dollars to the £ instead of 2.80, with resultant and apparently quite deliberate detriment to the British tourist. A small thing, perhaps, but characteristic.
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