The Import Duties Act 1932 (22 & 23 Geo. V c. 8) was an Act of

United Kingdom Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

. The Act introduced a general

tariff A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and poli ...

of 10% on most imports, though some foodstuffs,

raw material A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedst ...

s, and some imports from the British Empire were exempted. Specifically, the

Dominions The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, Dominion of New Zealand, New Zealand, Dominion of Newfoundland, Newfoundland, Un ...

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and

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were exempt from these tariffs until 15 November 1932, when the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa would have agreed on a system of

Imperial Preference Imperial Preference was a system of mutual tariff reduction enacted throughout the British Empire following the Ottawa Conference of 1932. As Commonwealth Preference, the proposal was later revived in regard to the members of the Commonwealth of N ...

. The

Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...

Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasemen ...

, introduced the Bill to the House of Commons on 4 February 1932. He had with him his father's old

despatch box A despatch box (alternatively dispatch box) is one of several types of boxes used in government business. Despatch boxes primarily include both those sometimes known as red boxes or ministerial boxes, which are used by the Sovereign and his min ...

from when he was

Secretary of State for the Colonies The secretary of state for the colonies or colonial secretary was the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, British Cabinet government minister, minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various British Empire, colonial dependencies. Histor ...

and his father's widow was present in the gallery. He explicitly referenced Joseph Chamberlain's crusade for

Tariff Reform The Tariff Reform League (TRL) was a protectionist British pressure group formed in 1903 to protest against what they considered to be unfair foreign imports and to advocate Imperial Preference to protect British industry from foreign competitio ...

in his speech: Upon finishing this speech, Neville's half-brother

Austen Chamberlain Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain (16 October 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (twice) and was briefly ...

got up from his seat and shook Neville's hand amidst cheering. The Bill passed the Commons by 454 votes to 78, being opposed by the Labour Party and 32 Liberals. It came into operation on 1 March 1932. Tariffs could be increased on the recommendation of the Import Duties Advisory Committee which the Act founded. The flat 10% tariff was increased to rates from 15% to 33% for various goods shortly after the Act was passed.David L. Glickman, 'The British Imperial Preference System', ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'', Vol. 61, No. 3. (May, 1947), pp. 439-470. According to

Nicholas Kaldor Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Cambridge economist in the post-war period. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare comparisons (1939), d ...

these tariffs encouraged domestic substitution for imports, increasing the UK's general level of manufacturing production during the years 1932–1937 by 48% (or 8.1% a year), a rate of growth not experienced by Britain before or since.Nicholas Kaldor, 'Lesson of the 1930s', ''The Times'' (21 April 1983), p. 15. Kaldor also claimed that real

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...

rose 4% a year during this period, making Britain the world's fastest growing economy (with the possible exception of

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). In regards to steel production, Britain was producing 13 million tons in 1937 compared to the 5 million tons produced in 1932 and the pre-Depression peak of 9 million tons in 1929.

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