Protection for paper industry

Lahore, Saturday, September 28, 1924

IT is too readily and too hastily assumed by some of their critics that educated and patriotic Indians are in favour of universal and indiscriminate protection. This has, of course, never been the case, and today, with the spread among an ever-increasing number of educated Indians of knowledge of the principles of political economy on the one hand and the experience of protectionist countries in other parts of the world on the other, it is even less true than it ever was. The fact of the matter is that the demand for protection had its origin in India, as elsewhere, with reference to certain specific industries which employed a large number of men and in respect of which it was considered essential that India should, as far as possible, be self-sufficient or cease to be unduly dependent on other countries for supplies. It was, of course, inevitable, that once protection was adopted as a policy, every industry would seek to benefit from it, but no mistake could be more serious than to take this interested cry of those engaged in a particular industry for the demand of the nation generally or the educated community in particular. A conspicuous case in point is the demand put forward before the Tariff Board by those engaged in the Indian paper industry. The grounds on which the demand has been made are the usual ones: an excess of competition, the inability of the industry to hold its own against this competition without such artificial aid as protection alone can give, and the assurance felt by the owners of the paper mills that given this aid they could hope not only to obtain a firm and permanent footing in the market but also rapidly extend their operations.