T
Ref. E.C.O. 15/422/1
W. Dorward, Esq.,
Commerce & Inductry Department, Fire Brigade Building,
KONG KONG.
British High Commission
30 Elgin Street
OTTAWA 4
23 December 1968
3
Thank you for your letter of 23 November asking for the other half of the photostat you were sent from a page of Hansurd about the new Canadian restraint arrangement with Jupan. I am very sorry that the halr extract was sent to you at all. There is no evidence of how it got dosputoned - at that stago it was quite unintentionel! I hope that this particular grealin confines himself to sending un- classified material.
2.
I had had the extract photostated and put on the file as part of a collection of material as the basis for an approach to the Department of Finance about their latest thinking. It took me some- time to get hold of anyone there but I have now done so and what follows largely reflects my recent conversation with Alec KacPherson.
3. When Kr. Benson was appointed Minister of Finance in July this year, he called for an interdepartmental study to be made on low coat imports. This was to include such items as electronics products and flatware, but was of course mainly concerned with textiles products of all kinds, and particularly garments. Early in October, the Canadian Textile Institute put in a strong brief to the Canadian Government, in which it sought more stringent limitations on textile inports from low cost income countries. Their representatives were acon by the Frine Minister end the Minister of Finance and I enclose a copy of an extract from the Hontreal Gazette of 8 October which is the best account we have of what was said.
40 The following day in the House of Commons, the Prino Kinister put the Canadian problem in a mut shell when he said: "The question of in- portations from less developed countries has been of concern to us for a long time, because both the Canadian producer and the Canadian worker are to be protected, while at the same time developing countries should not find closed markets everywhore, in more prosperous countries, liko our own1. Those two factors have to be assessed and interests in both cases protectcd."
5.
Since October, briefs have been submitted by the Canadian Apparel Hanufacturers Association and the Canadian Garment Manufacturers Association plugging much the same line at the Textile Institute. There was a press report in the Globe and Kail on 19 Novelber on Whe apparel manufacturers views and I enclose a copy.
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Nite?
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