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RECORD OF A MEETING BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND A DEPUTATION FROM THE BRITISH RUBBER FOOTWEAR MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION
The President accompanied by Mr. Hewitt and Miss Dennehy saw a deputation from the British Rubber Footwear Manufacturers' Association on 28th November.
2. The deputation explained that imports of rubber footwear from Hong Kong were causing their industry considerable concern. Competition from low-cost areas was a perennial problem for their industry; acuto competition from Japan had led to the rubber footwear industry being the first case to be examined by I.D.A.C. in 1933 but after steps had boon taken to deal to some extent with Japanese competition imports from Hong Kong had taken their place. If this acute competition had continued after 1939 the industry would have been unable to meet the demands placed upon it for essential military stores. Aftor the interruption of the war years competition from Hong Kong had already re-assumed mcnacing proportions. Shipments of rubber footwear from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom had reached an annual rate of five million pairs in the first six months of 1950, and this amounted to 20% of United Kingdom production. These shipments of footwear consisted exclusively of sizes which were too small to incur Purchase Tax and were of uniformly low quality, whereas all members of the Association had undertaken voluntarily to abide by B.S. I. specifications which they themselves had assisted in preparing. The doputation made it clear that they did not suggest that those imports should be prohibited but they did put forward the suggestion that the Government should limit them by quota. The deputation proposed that the President should set up a sub-committee consisting of two members of the industry, two Trade Union members and two Board of Trade officials to consider the problem of imports of rubber footwear from Hong Kong and to report their findings to the President.
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3. In reply the President oxplained that the problem was not, of course, confined to rubber footwear, but was a general one in relation to imports of many kinds from low-costs producers: ho quoted the recent example of Hong Kong shirts. current international commitments made it virtually impossiblo for us to impose import restrictions for other than balance of payments reasons, and no such reasons existed in the case of Hong Kong. As the industry wore aware, it had never been possible to impose quantitative restrictions on Commonwealth products of this kind before the war. The imposition of the other possible form of protection, i.e. tariffs on Commonwealth goods, would clearly be out of the question in view of our Imperial Preference undertakings. He was, in addition, uncertain from the figures so far this year who thor the marked fall in imports of rubber footwear from Hong Kong during the last three or four months was a permanent, suasonal, or cxcuptional trend. The figures for the first half of this year word, he suggested, inflated considerably by the rush to import after the issue of an 0.G.L. He had asked thu Secretary of State for the Colonies to enquire into the reasons for the closing down of a rubber footwear factory in Hong Kong and he had not yet received a roply; and he drew the attention of the Deputation to the Reply given by the Secretary of State to a Question on this subject (Hansard 22/11/50 Col. 337). The President suggested, therefore, that it might be wise to make sure of some of those additional facts before coming to a ducision on a matter which was clearly of very considerable difficulty. From the political point of view the deputation
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