a system of consignment licensing for cotton textiles from the developing countries, with a limited period of validity (say 2 months) for each licence. Running totals could be kept of the quantities licensed of particular categories of cotton textiles, and action taken, if necessary, to restrict types which seemed likely to rise to disruptive levels. Under Article 3 of the Long Term Arrangement, it would be necessary to hold consultations with the countries supplying the goods concerned; but in critical circumstances it is permissible to impose import restrictions while the consultations take place.
30.
This would be less objectionable internationally than an immediate system of restriction. The drawback however with
this arrangement is that there is reason to doubt whether restrictions could be introduced sufficiently quickly in a disruptive situation to alleviate the situation very significantly; indeed, the very existence of a monitoring system could well aggravate the immediate problem, as suppliers rushed in goods before selective controls were imposed. Import monitoring would not apply to the bulk of arrivals in the first six or eight weeks of 1972, since these would be goods shipped under quota from Asia in 1971. To form any assessment of the volume of goods coming in under conditions of unrestricted trade, it would then be necessary to allow three or four months to clapse. But if by the summer it had become clear that action must be taken, it would be difficult to deny entry to the considerable further quantities (another six or eight weeks arrivals) which would already by on the water, and for which payment would already have been made by the importer. If a very limited number of licences were to be made available for the balance of the year, problems would arise in allocating then amongst the various importers with outstanding contracts. In short, Lancashire would h ́ve good reason to object that a monitoring safeguard would be inadequate;
inadequate; it would offer no relief from the increased pressure of imports in the first half of next year, and would provide an uncertain prospect
of relief thereafter.
16.