I know that, but the Board of Trade does not seem to have accepted it yet. It has given no final decision. None of these three points is valid any more, so why do not we say that we will keep protection as it is and then everyone will be happy? The reasons for making a change have ceased to exist.

I wish to quote one paragraph from the judgment of the Restrictive Practices Court: The evidence which was laid before us, and the statistical comparison of operating costs between the United Kingdom and similar costs in India and Pakistan, left us in no doubt that the concessions envisaged by the Working Party of 1948 in their admirable comprehensive and valuable Report, as justifying protection of the home industry, continue to apply, and, so far as can reasonably be foreseen, will continue to do so. Even the Restrictive Practices Court recognised the need to continue this protection for jute goods produced in this country for as far ahead as could be foreseen to make up for the difference in cost created by the use of cheap labour which is still obtainable in India.

The hon. Member for South Angus asked whether a Labour Government would subsidise the jute industry. I wish to draw his attention to the fact that this Government do not subsidise jute. In fact, it is a case of subsidy in reverse. The Government rake in as protection money no less than £750,000 every year. This is equivalent to every jute worker in Dundee paying nearly £1 a week as protection money to the Government for his job. So the Government do better out of this than even Al Capone did in his heyday in Chicago. I do not think that there is any question of a subsidy, in fact it is the opposite. This is a highly profitable investment for the Government. There is no question of a subsidy for Dundee, Forfar or the jute industry; the subsidy goes to the Government.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have agreed that the area in question is isolated. Why is it isolated? Simply because the Government will not build a road to connect up the whole of the East Coast of Scotland. Even the railways, 100 years ago, had the sense to connect up the whole of the East Coast of Scotland with the East Coast of England. Whether we like it or not, three out of the four Scottish cities are situated on the East Coast. The two most difficult physical hazards have been or are being overcome by the building of road bridges over the Tay and the Forth.

This has been done under a Tory Government after a great deal of pressure. It is the fact that despite this pressure the Government, through the Secretary of State for Scotland, have refused even to consider building a road across Fife to connect up the two bridges. Their plans for a dual carriageway road go as far as Newcastle and then stop. We have the farcical situation that traffic up the East Coast of Scotland gets to Scotch Corner and then goes to the West Coast to compete with the West Coast traffic on the already overcrowded roads there, until it gets into Scotland then it goes back to the East Coast again.

That farcical situation exists simply because the Government will not agree to building two fairly short stretches of good modern road. That is why the jute industry area is isolated. We can blame no one but the Government for that.

I think that the jute industry is efficient. It has fought for survival for 100 years. Regularly, people have forecast that the industry was dying, but it still survives every new invention, obstacle and competitor. It does so because of its very efficient research department which was paid for entirely by the industry. A vast amount of money, over £13 million, was spent on modernising equipment and plant on the strength of promises made by the present Minister of Defence and the Tory Government. After the money had been spent those promises were broken. No wonder the people of Dundee will not trust Tory promises.

Let us look at the statements made by the respective party leaders during the recent by-election and we shall then see in which party people in the industry are likely to place their faith. In a statement to the Tory candidate in the Dundee, West by-election the Prime Minister said: The people of Dundee have shown how readily they can develop the skills needed for industries which have already settled there. We shall strive to attract more industries to Dundee. But Scotland needs its older industries as well as new ones and we intend to ensure that the long association of jute with Dundee is maintained by an efficient and self-supporting industry. I am sorry; I should have said, "efficient and viable industry". I said "self- supporting" because I discovered that this is what "viable" means. Until then I did not know what it meant. I sometimes wonder whether the Prime Minister knew, when I compare some of the statements which he made with what happened later, and with things said by Ministers in the Government.

The next statement which the right hon. Gentleman made related to the Tay road bridge; that work had started on it and would be of great importance to Dundee. It would provide a direct road to the South and be a boon to industry setting up in the area. But the direct road to the South has a big gap in it where there is not a good road. When we asked Ministers of the Government what they were proposing to do about the gap, in view of what the Prime Minister had said, we found that they had no plans to do anything. So this direct road to the South seems to me something about which the Prime Minister did not know. He had forgotten that there is a county called Fife and that a good road is required from Edinburgh to Newcastle.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the development of skills needed in respect of industries already settled in Dundee. It was fortunate for the people of Dundee that there was a Labour Government after the war. That was when the new industries came to Dundee and it was the result of legislation passed by the Government of that time. Most of the industry which has come to Dundee since then and in the lifetime of this Parliament consists of extension of industries which came during the period of office of the Labour Government. It is not possible to extend something which was not there already, and if the Labour Government had not successfully attracted industry to the area there could have been no extension.

It would be interesting to discover—I shall put down a Parliamentary Question in order to do so—how many new industries as distinct from extensions of existing industries have come to Dundee during the 12 years that this Government have been in office. The figure would be found to be surprisingly small. No wonder the Prime Minister said that the people of Dundee have to continue with the existing and older industries. It is certainly necessary that this should be so, if Dundee is to be a prosperous area. Let us contrast this rather vague statement by the Prime Minister with what Harold Wilson said when he sent me a message during the by-election.