TARIFF WALLS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20316, 15 August 1931, Page 16

TARIFF WALLS.

i HINDRANCE TO WORJuD I TRADE. j " i FEELING IN THE UNITED I STATES. j Leading members of the Democratic ! Party in ilio United States are showing a decided tendency to revolt against i the high protective tariffs introduced j by the Hoover Administration. This ie i the more significant because tho Democrats, in the last Presidential cam- j paign, accepted the principle of pro- j tective tariffs. Governor Franklin D. Eoosevelt, of New York, a likely candidate for the Presidency next year, said, on his J return from a visit to Europe: ■ X continue to bo convinced that the ' Hawley-Smoot Tariff Law is one of the j most important factors in the present world-wide depression. This Tariff Law ( proved from the day it was passed a serious hindrance in the interchange of goods known as world trade. Neither American nor world-wide prosperity can return by building .import-proof tariff walls around each nation. The United States cannot expect merely to sell its goods without buying other goods in return, and a flow of goods throughout the world markets must bo restored. Our present Tariff Law is one of the most serious obstacles to the return of prosperity. Senator Cor doll Hull, of Tennessee, said in a recent statement: Tariff walls virtually insurmouutable, with their accompanying retaliations and reprisals in most countries, including our own, constitute the great est single underlying factor in the prosent distressful economic situation. . . . American leadership, all-powerful since tho Fordney Act of _ 1922, is chiefly responsible for the high tariff and narrow trade policies throughout tho world. To a very great extent this has resulted in the loss of international trade from 1913 to 1927 of 200,000,000 dollars in present-day money, compared to what international trade would have amounted to according to the pre-war ratio of annual gain. . . . Conditions domand that this and other nations cease their wild tariff increases and their frenzied pursuit of blind and selfish economic isolation. Leading the World Out. This nation, which, largely led the world into the proseut catastrophe, cannot proceed too soon to lead it out. Such understanding would embrace careful and gradual revision downwards, with the aid of a fact-finding commission and commercial policy based on the unconditional favoured-nation doctrine. The new Congress and the President would co-operate in tho of lowering Customs dutios and establishing liberal commercial policy. The President would negotiate tentative reciprocal arrangements or agreements for tariff concessions or reductions, both general and special. Tho inseparable problem of bringing about domestic and world tariff reduction and Buitable commercial policy presents such unusual difficulties that Congress, in addition to performing its own functions, might deem it necessary to authorise tho President by proclamation to make ■ such treaties cffoctivo where tariff reductions only arc involved and when Congress fails to reject uuch treaties after, say, three or six months' opportunity for consideration. This action would prevent successful filibustering (obstruction) by small minorities. Reciprocity Advocated. Governor H. H. Woodring, Democrat, of Kansas, has written to President Hoover, asking him to make reciprocal 'srrangements->*wth other nations ivhere"by substantial reluct ons be made in American tar ff schedules in exchange for, lower tariffs Abroad on American agricultural products. Ho soys:— --'r I would invito your attention to the fact that wheiv economists of the nation presented a memorial to you and to Congress protesting against the enactment of the Sinoot-Hawley Bill the floor leader of tho Senate mado tho statement that he would predict and guarantee that within six months after this Bill became a law agriculture would flourish and prosperity would bo restored to the country. Inasmuch as a condition entirely the reverse has been brought about, especially in reference to agriculture, so that we are actually selling our goods below the cost of production, while tho purchasing power of the farmer has vanished. I urge you to use the power granted you under the flexible tariff provisions to afford needed relief to the agricultural and other basie industries of the middle west. j