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4. The Heads of Agreement and the arrangements which
have been made with the other "restrained" suppliers
are intended collectively to avoid further disruption
of the British market. Even though the term "disruption"
has a strong subjective element about it, it is hardly
a matter for dispute, as we see it, given the extent,
unique in the world, to which our consumption of
cotton textiles is met by imports, with the consequent
rapid rundown in the production of our domestic
industry, that we have suffered and indeed tolerated
an unparalleled degree of market disruption. This
applies to cotton textiles as a whole. Perhaps in
our case we need a new expression to convey something
stronger than mere "disruption" - perhaps "decimation"
would fill the bill. Categorisation, in our case, is
intended to avoid decimation of particular sectors of
our market. The existing degree of categorisation may
Our not, however, always be sufficient to avoid it.
main contention on sheets and wide sheeting was, in
effect, that a state of disruption was threatening to
become a state of "decimation" and we, therefore, asked
the Hong Kong Government to cooperate in affording us
some measure of relief in return for compensation in
other sectors. We are grateful to the Hong Kong
Government for meeting our request.
5. I realise, of course, even on the assumption
that the case for relief is conceded, that there
may be considerable scope for argument about the
Some of degree. The comments in the middle section of your
despatch show, clearly enough, that you consider
the new restraint levels on sheets and sheeting to
be more severe than the facts warrant. This is a
matter of judgment.
We believed that, to give some
/significant