When I assumed last week that, since the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation had recommended that member countries should fix the allowance for tourists at the equivalent of 150 dollars, tourists would now get £53 instead of £50 I was reckoning without the sharp practice of the Treasury. When Mr. Edelman put a question on the subject to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Tuesday Sir Stafford answered blandly that when the recommenda- tion was accepted it was made clear that " we regarded the existing £50 allowance as being broadly equivalent to 150 dollars." It is, of course, not equivalent to 150 dollars. Sir Stafford, who fixed the £ at 2.80 dollars in September and now puts it at 3 dollars in order to do down British tourists (planners' arithmetic, no doubt), will, I hope, be pressed further on this. I wonder whether any other country, member of O.E.E.C., is practising this particular kind of shabbiness at the expense of its tourists. 150 dollars, with the £ at its statutory rate of $2.80, is equal to £53 11s. 5d.
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