In 12 years in the House I have never dared to enter a debate which was mostly devoted to Scotland, but this is a debate that really does not apply to Scotland except under one Clause in the Bill. I therefore feel that I shall not be transgressing and become an automatic member of the Scottish Grand Committee by intervening, particularly as I have some very pleasant recollections of being stationed with the 52nd Division in Dundee during the war, where I ran a concert and raised £250 for the Dundee P.O.W. organisation.

I rise, strangely enough, to oppose what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) has said on the matter of jute. I think that the exception proves the rule and that there is a strong case for the jute industry. I am sure that it would be wrong if the impression went out as a result of this debate that the Opposition held this view very strongly and that we did not. On the other hand, I think that there is a great deal in what the Government suggested when my hon. Friend was Minister of State, Board of Trade, because one difficulty about protection from overseas competition is that if protective duties are too high and, therefore, one increases the price of the commodity on the internal market above the price of competing commodities, one does not increase the employment and the turnover in the industry but reduces them.

It is also essential in any industry which enjoys protection from overseas competition that there must be no suspicion of co-ordination and marketing practice. The only way in which protection from overseas competition can be justified is by ensuring that there is competition in that commodity on the internal market. I think that that situation is now beginning to apply in the jute industry for the fact that my hon. Friend when he was at the Board of Trade had to look into this shows that the situation was not as desperate as the picture of competition which the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) painted this afternoon. In fact, the hon. Gentleman gave the game away when he quoted what the Restrictive Practices Court said. One cannot have it both ways. The fact that it is all right now that the restrictive practice has been done away with shows clearly that before that happened the competition was not so keen.

I think that if the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) goes into the Library and looks at the map he will see that the shortest distance from Scotch Corner to Dundee is through Carlisle and not Berwick-on-Tweed.