Former MP for Westbury
I desire—[HON. MEMBERS: "Agreed!"]—I do not wish to detain the House more than a moment or two. I do not inflict myself upon the House in agricultural matters for the very good reason that I know quite clearly that there are other Members much better qualified than I am to speak upon them. I do, however, feel it incumbent upon me to say just one word, because I happen to represent a...
Why have you dropped Protection?
I beg to move, in line 2, to leave out the word "six," and to insert instead thereof the word "two." The object of this Amendment is to reduce the extended guarantee from £600,000 to £200,000. In the first place, I would like to associate myself with the hon. Member for Balham (Sir A. Butt) in his expression of regret that we have not had any White Paper giving us figures, or some fuller...
May I ask what the right hon. Gentleman did say?
Then I withdraw my remark, and I am sorry that I cannot associate the right hon. Gentleman with the views I hold as to the duties of a Government regarding foreign trade. In my view it is no business of the Government at all to bother about foreign trade. As Mr. Gladstone once said, it is the function of a Government to govern and not to trade. What has the Government to do with exhibitions...
I am afraid that I do not associate myself with the view that we on this side of the Committee are Little Englanders. I quite appreciate the fact that I was overstepping the limit of the Debate in dealing with the Department of Overseas Trade. There will be another opportunity of dealing with that subject. When the first Bill was introduced and the original sum of £100,000 was named as...
I am giving my reasons for not increasing the amount. Surely, it is pertinent to quote arguments used on the original Bill? Two years after this Imperial Timber Exhibition the imports from the Colonies decreased to 8 per cent.; we were buying more from foreign countries than at the time of the exhibition. Another argument which was used was, that always after an exhibition there is a great...
I am very sorry, but I cannot, see how I have transgressed your ruling. The real reason why I move this Amendment is to suggest that there should be an inquiry into the whole management of the exhibition. We have had one inquiry in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks) took buckets of whitewash and whitewashed the whole thing.
