(6) Cotton was not a pleasant experience for
Hong Kong.
Hong Kong had then been isolated
from other main producing countries. This
was not the case now. Cotton had been presented
as a unique problem which would not provide
a precedent and it would cause ill feeling
if it were now brought up as a precedent for
action on other fibres.
(7) Cotton had also been presented as a problem
which it was necessary to solve in order to
stop protectionism and as the price of achieving
the Kennedy Round of tariff negotiations.
But the Kennedy Round had not been of great
benefit to Hong Kong.
(8) Hong Kong were now told that action on wool
and m.m.f. was the price for containing protection-
ism and this drew attention to the paradox of
protecting free trade by restricting it.
(9) A great difficulty from Hong Kong's point of
view in a multilateral arrangement would be
the spread of the virus of protectionism.
(10)
One of the great difficulties of the cotton
textile arrangements was that it involved a
formal derogation of GATT rights by allowing
import controls to be imposed by the importing
country.
- 6.
/ (11)
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