ENG-1957 — Page 115

INDUSTRY AND TRADE

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trade when a re-allocation of I.C.A. funds was arranged to finance the purchase by Indonesia of textiles and yarn manufactured locally from American raw cotton made avail- able under United States Public Law 480. This programme contributed usefully to the short-term stability of the cotton textile industry and to its prosperity during the first half of the year.

Since 1955 there has been organized pressure from a sector of the Lancashire cotton textile industry to limit cotton textile imports into the United Kingdom from abroad, especially from India, Pakistan and Hong Kong. Towards the end of 1956 the United Kingdom Cotton Board spon- sored the visit of a mission to India and Hong Kong under the leadership of Sir Cuthbert Clegg, with the object of securing a voluntary limitation of exports of cotton textiles to the United Kingdom. The mission arrived in the Colony in January 1957 after discussions in India, but no definite understanding or agreement was reached between the parties concerned. Later, in May, when the Cotton Board was endeavouring to negotiate a similar agreement with the Pakistan industry, the Hong Kong Cotton Spinners Asso- ciation, with whom the Clegg Mission had principally negotiated, issued a positive statement to the effect that they could not agree to any form of voluntary limitation.

Later in the year it became necessary for the Government to take a more direct interest in the problem. In October Mr. F. J. Erroll, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary to the United Kingdom Board of Trade, arrived in the Colony en route to Peking, and the opportunity was taken to discuss with him Hong Kong's problems in relation to those of the Lancashire textile industry. Before his departure, Mr. Erroll was able to state that he hoped that a solution to Lancashire's difficulties might be evolved which would not conflict with the United Kingdom Government's policy of not imposing quota restrictions on Hong Kong's manufactures.