I could not agree with that. I would say that the only thing we could do would be to raise the price of 30s. to the final American consumer if we thought we could sell the whisky and still do that. But I do not believe that we could raise the 5s. price we receive without the final price to the American consumer going up. If the final price to the American consumer went up to more than 30s. there would still be the same margin. It is true, as the hon. Member pointed out, that five or six months ago, as soon as control was taken off in America, the price shot up to 9 or 10 dollars. It was at that time that I first heard this suggestion, and I first spoke to the representatives of the Dis- tillers' Association and suggested to them that they might raise their prices Their prices were raised a little—very little— and it seemed to me at that time that there was a strong case for raising them further, because it looked as if the traffic would bear a higher price. I thought at that time that they might be wrong in refusing to raise the price. I think that if the hon. Member had raised this matter six months ago, I might have been inclined to agree with him and to have considered putting pressure on the distillers to raise the price; but frankly, looking back on it now, I think that if I had done that I would have been wrong and they would have been right, as things have turned out, because the sharp rise to 10 dollars in American prices proved to be shortlived and prices have now come back in many cases to less than 6 dollars.

There are advertisements—and it would be difficult to say that they are fakes and do not mean anything—in which a New York seller of whisky advertises in a large and expensive New York paper that he is willing to sell whisky at these prices. I see whisky advertised at 4.98 dollars. That price is mentioned in two advertisements, and there is a more expensive brand at 6.98 dollars. That is a fairly wide variation, but in many cases it is freely advertised at a price well under 5 dollars. Therefore, when I see the price, on the basis of 5s. 0d. charged, raised normally to 6 dollars, I am afraid there is little to get out of that. The extreme price boom in the United States in whisky, as in other things, is over. Personally, I am very glad it is over, and I think that, on balance, it will benefit this country.

We think this fall in price is very important indeed to this country. The prices which we maintain for most of our exports are limited by a very sharp fall in many prices in the United States so that although there was a strong prima facie case for doing the thing 12 months ago, and I might well have urged the whisky distillers then, they proved longsighted in their own interests, which coincided with ours, in not pushing the price up to the maximum the traffic would bear during that period. They had only a period of a few months and they proved wise in leaving the price what it was, which is probably the right price for retail prices as they have settled down in New York today. No one would be keener than I if I could see a way out of getting more dollars out of any of our exports. But I should have thought the distillers had made a case to show that if they put up their prices today, they might very easily destroy this very important market and, far from making more dollars, we should get fewer. Therefore, I say with great respect to my hon. Friend and with gratitude to him for raising this issue, because it is important that it should be aired, I am confident that the distillers put up an unanswerable case for maintaining the present price.