WHILE the rest of the world has been getting used to filling up the forms required by Customs authorities, and to awaiting with patience the delays involved in the examination by Customs laboratories of imported products that may prove to be dutiable, Great Britain has forgotten the very existence of such things, and their reintroduction, as a consequence of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, is regarded as little less than a revolutionary innovation by importers and their spokesmen in the House of Commons. It is clear from the debate which took place on Sir John Simon's amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the King's Speech, regretting the absence of any reference to the repeal of this Act, that opposition to the Act arises largely from its administration. Almost every speaker admitted the necessity of legislation to prevent the recurrence of the famine in magnetos, drugs, optical glass, dyes, and other essential commodities, which occurred in this country on the outbreak of war, but those who wished the Act repealed failed to mention a scheme by which this end could be achieved, probably because any attempt to do so would split up the apparently solid phalanx of opposition. To those who have the national welfare in mind, the troubles of Sir John Simon's trader, who had a consignment of potassium permanganate held up for two months by the Customs, will make slight appeal, and they would cheerfully see a few traders, who have no direct interest in industry and merely buy and sell, sacrificed, if by that means they could ensure the establishment in this country of highly technical industries in which skilled craftsmen and technical experts could be employed and the safety of the country in war and in peace assured. The difficulties which the operation of the Act places in the way of the importation of chemicals and instruments required by research workers, naturally evoke more sympathy than those of traders; and it is satisfactory that the Government was able to promise a joint inquiry by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Board of Trade into the progress actually made in the industries with which the Act is concerned. In the course of that inquiry these difficulties will no doubt be fully explored and means of dealing with them evolved.