The Prime Minister, in reply to the Lancashire men, declared
that in these exceptional times the Safeguarding of Industries Act was intended as a wall against a deluge of absurdly cheap goods which might come upon us through the collapse of the foreign exchanges. He was, he said, alarmed at the cata- strophic fall of the mark, which is now worth a tenth of a penny. The German workman was producing goods at less than half the wages paid here, and the wonder was that German goods had not flooded the world's markets. He illustrated the situation by saying that two men in Vienna had each 10,000 kronen. One put his money into the bank. The other bought wine and drank it. Through a sudden fall in the exchange it then turned out that the wine-drinker's empty bottles were worth more than the other man's bank deposit. Germans were therefore converting all their money into goods. But when that home demand ceased, we should be faced with enormous imports at prices with which we could not compete. The Prime Minister did his best to support his colleague, Mr. Baldwin, who insists onputting the Act in force. For all that, a fresh Committee was appointed on Monday to consider the strong objections taken by Lancashire to the duty on fabric gloves.
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