FREE TRADE OR PROTECTION Sta,—In your issue of December 27th
Mr. George Peel . certainly clarifies the issue by explaining that when he quoted figures showing a decline in our exports and referred to the policy of Protection he did not mean the policy as adopted by Great Britain in 1932, but the Protective policy of the whole world. I am afraid, however, that he must have misled many other people besides your leader-writer and myself ; nor, in view of the specific point with which I felt com- pelled to deal, is he, I tbink,.justified in claiming such an immense superiority of vision. He now refers to the trade between ourselves and France, but surely that does not cover the whole world either. Will Mr. Peel examine the figures of our imports ; those, I mean, from the whole world? They, like our exports, steadily increased following our adoption of Protection. Where, then, is the justification for the use of the word " restriction "? Making due allowance for other factors, among them the trade agreements which the policy alone made possible, the movement in our trade during this period is highly significant.—Yours faithfully, W. A. WELLS, News Editor.
Empire Industries Association, 9 Victoria Street, S.W.I.
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