Commonwealth cotton textiles will provide too little protection
and will further exacerbate their difficulties in the present
conditions of a high and continuing level of unemployment lead
me to conclude that we should not not proceed with our intention
of abandoning quota restrictions when we impose the tariff in
1972. I am therefore proposing that, in addition to the tariff,
we should maintain the existing quota arrangements from
1 January 1972.
There is no doubt that such an outcome will be regarded as
entirely satisfactory by the Community which has wanted us to
stay under a quota regime. It may serve to take some of the steam
out of the present campaign by bits of the Lancashire industry 4.
although, given that we shall have to allow in 1972 at least the
current level of imports it is unlikely in practice to do a great
deal more than perhaps slow down the rate of collapse of mills
which the industry itself forecast would have to go if an
effective and stable industry, capable of living in the Community,
was to be developed. And it will not be wholly unwelcome to the
more efficient firms in the domestic industry, although they
will be unable to reap the full benefits of the more streamlined
industry for which they have invested.
But there is no doubt that the retention of quotas will
create an uproar in the Commonwealth textile exporting countries,
who objected strongly to the tariff decision, and to whom we
justified it with the explicit assurance that quotas would disappear
To the world at large we will also appear to be going back on our
word and surrending to protectionism this cannot make any
easier our task of resisting the protectionist moves in the major
trading countries. We clearly have a difficult time ahead in the
3