I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) for raising this question, because it should be ventilated in the House, and it is a case which, at first hearing, impressed me, and still does impress me. It is important because anything which can earn us extra dollars is of importance to every one of us, especially to me, the biggest spender of dollars on foodstuffs in the country. Therefore, I regard it of great importance to look into it and satisfy myself whether there is anything in it and if so how much, and, not content with my generalised statement on the matter which I gave my hon. Friend earlier, we discussed the matter with the distillers at an earlier date, and I had a thorough discussion with my hon. Friend later.

What I said in my answer to him was that it seemed strange to me to urge capitalist sellers to raise their prices. I entirely agree with him that we can very often make suggestions which are valuable to private enterprise as to how they should conduct their affairs, and make suggestions in the national interest, which they are not usually l0th to follow, particularly in raising their prices, when they see it is in their interests to do so. But there was a prima facie argument that they would not benefit by raising prices at this time. I agree that we should not be content with that, and we have looked into it.

Their price—export wholesale price— the kind of foreign currency which we get in the United States, is 5s., and the hon. Member for Nuneaton says that this compares with a price in this country of 25s. 1 do not think that is quite right. It really compares with a price of 4s. 3½d., which is rather a different thing. It is the distiller's price to the wholesaler in each case, and that is a fair and relative comparison.