January 3 1975
Food bills are likely to soar as a result of a double New Year blow to housewives – the 9p rise on 2lb of sugar, and the increase in Common Market import duties.
All products using sugar would eventually go up in price, the Food Manufacturers’ Federation said yesterday. Director-General Mr FJ Lawton commented: “The 30p pot of jam is in sight.”
The four trade associations representing the main sugar users – the Food Manufacturers Association, the Cake and Biscuit Alliance, the British Soft Drinks Council, and the Cocoa, Chocolate and Confectioners Alliance – are seeking a meeting with Prices Secretary Mrs Shirley Williams early next week.
The new EEC import duties – which came into effect on January 1 – were strongly condemned by the Free Trade League and Cobden Club, a non-party organisation devoted to eliminating import duties.
A joint statement from Mr SW Alexander and chairman Mr Newton Jones protested that there had been no debate in Parliament.
The crippling cost-of-living crisis people experienced in the first half of the 1970s continued unabated into 1975.
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Sinn Féin lists ‘Bars to Peace’
Welcome for the 14-day extension of the IRA ceasefire came from the Ulster executive and the Belfast comhairle ceanntair of Provisional Sinn Féin.
The Ulster executive said: “The republican movement has once again shown to the peoples of the free world that they truly desire peace. The peace they seek is the true peace – a peace based on justice, equality and freedom of for all.
“The use of the Emergency Provisions Act is a bar to peace; the Offences Against the State Act is a bar to peace; the holding of hundreds of political hostages is a bar to peace; the saturation and aggressive attitude of British troops and the RUC towards areas and people is a bar to peace.
“Therefore to those who seek peace we say – get rid of the above ills that have befallen our community and we are assured of being on the road to a just and lasting peace”.
Despite an extension of the IRA’s ceasefire, Sinn Féin claimed there could only be a permanent peace based on certain “bars” being removed.
