TNAG-0300-FCO40-336-Entitlement-of-Hong-Kong-to-generalized-tariffs-preferences--1971 — Page 41

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clear that, if imports at their present level (as Lancashire

ocons inclined to argue) really are the cause of their

immediate troubles, it will be extremely difficult consistently

with our international obligations to reduce them.

HISTORY

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A little history may put the present situation in

perspective.

Lencashire has been a problem for 60 years. It

has shrunk from 750,000 employees producing 81 billion sq yda

of cloth in 1912 to about 100,000 producing 14 billion to-day.

Successive Governments have sought to ease the process, with at

least four Acts of Parliament and measures ranging from grants

for scrapping and labour redeployment to exemptionsfrom purchase

tax. Except for periods like the decade following 1945, there

has never been anything resembling stability in the industry.

Productivity has remained well below that in the United Staten

and in many European cotton textile industries. Until fairly

recently, management has waited to be driven by circumstances

into change rather than anticipating and adjusting to it.

Low-cost imports have become a serious problem only in tho

last decade or so and without doubt have added to the industry's

sense of instability. Quantitative restrictions began to bo

introduced from 1960 onwards; but Commonwealth considerations.

led us to set them at levels which have allowed imports of

cotton textiles, mainly duty free from Commonwealth sources,

to take up to 40 or 50 per cent of the market, a much higher

share than in any other major industrial country.