Book Imports (Restrictions)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 4 December 1947.

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Photo of Mr John Belcher Mr John Belcher , Sowerby 12:00, 4 December 1947

I am not being dogmatic about this matter at all. I am trying to point out that there are these very great difficulties. Let me say on the general issue that I do appreciate that there is a great shortage of books at the present time. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Central Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. Wilkes) is correct when he talks about the shortage of books for our university faculties. I receive almost daily complaints from Members of Parliament and others, and from learned societies, about their inability, or their constituents' inability, to get hold of books. I feel very sorry about it, and I want to do all I can to assist.

I agree that books are in a different category from other goods. The hon. Member for Devizes opened with that point. He pointed out that in normal conditions the traffic between ourselves and the United States of America gave us a favourable balance. I believe that to be the case. But I must make this point to him: our present dollar situation is really extremely serious indeed; and I think that the view of the Government would have to be that, even if books were making a valuable contribution to our present dollar income, in that we had a surplus of dollars derived from the sale of British books in the United States of America, we ought not to lay it down that the dollars earned by the sale of British books must necessarily be equated with the amount of pounds earned in this country. Dollars earned must go into the general pool from which we buy our foodstuffs, raw materials and other things. I look forward to the time when paper, printing machinery and other things are in good supply, so that we can build up our book production, so that we can, possibly, increase our supply of books to other countries, and so bring more into this country.