The Press TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1956. Further Success For G.A.T.T.

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27992, 12 June 1956, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1956. Further Success For G.A.T.T.

The details of the tariff concessions arranged during the recent Geneva conference of signatories to the ■ General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (G.A.T.T.) are not yet available; but it seems clear from preliminary reports that this fourth tariff conference successfully maintained the earlier progress towards

freer world trade which it is the function of the organisation to promote. The external trade of 22 countries will be affected by the concessions on trade items amounting to some 2,500,000,000 dollars a year. The principal concessions have been made by the United States. A message from Washington says that

. these affect imports worth nearly 1,000,000,000 dollars a year; in return the United States has received I concessions on its exports worth ; “ hundreds of millions of dollars a . “ year ”. The Canadian Minister of Trade (Mr Howe) has said that j Canada has obtained tariff conces- | sions on more than 300,000,000

dollars worth of goods, about twothirds of which will help expand Canadian exports to the United States. Apart from dealings with the United States, a mass of mutual concessions were arranged by delegations in bilateral talks. The remain-

ing third of the Canadian concessions would be among them; and in Canberra the Acting-Minister of Trade (Mr McMahon) said that Australia had negotiated “ small ” agreements with Germany and Aus-

tria, as well as with the United States. Britain negotiated extensively with the United States, but also exchanged tariff concessions with Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Italy, and the Benelux * countries.

Few expected such substantial gains from the conference; many thought it would do well to hold for a further period the concessions arranged at earlier conferences. These, it was thought, had breached as far as was practicable, in the face of the present counter-tide of ■ protectionism, the tariff walls which ! the post-war world had inherited | from the depression of the 1930’5. But impetus for a fourth conference, and a good reason for it, had been provided by the power given to the United States President under the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1955 to reduce duties by 15 per cent, in the next three years. Under the terms of the legislation the first of these instalments had to be effected by June 30 of this year. Thus, the American legislation determined the timing of the conference and, in effect, the concessions that would be offered. The cuts in American duties could be wide but they could not be deep: and the impressive volume of trade affected by the concessions arranged testifies to the very wide area of trade that the delegates succeeded in covering. The conference has given the best possible answer to the pessimists, and at the same time 1 has provided welcome evidence of i the continued willingness of nations t to work together to liberalise world : trade, which is the xmly sure foundation for the continued improvement of living standards the world over.

The American liberality at this conference encourages hopes that the United States Congress may endorse the Administration's support for the projected Organisation for Trade Co-operation. This organisation has been proposed as a permanent international body to serve G.A.T.T.’s 35 member nations by providing administrative machinery which would increase the effectiveness of the General Agreement. Though American membership of O.T.C. (which would be essential for the organisation to function effectively) is supported by the Administration, Republican support for the proposal cannot be taken for granted. When the Ways and Means Committee of the House of RepreI sentatives recently approved the project by 18 votes, to seven, the 1 Democrats voted 14 to one in favour and the Republicans six to four against. The Republicans .on that committee were impressed by the argument that O.T.C. would put the American economy into international bondage, deprive Congress of its control over tariff policy, undermine United States industry, and, in short, cut away the roots of national sovereignty—arguments that have a familiar ring in New Zealand. But. oddly enough, those who use these arguments to oppose this country’s membership of G.A.T.T., the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, usually assert that these international organisations are completely dominated by the United States and are tools of American policy. Isolationism and protectionism are more firmly entrenched in the United States than in New Zealand; but strong voices in the United States are now being raised against what one noted journalist calls “ a miasmic wall of fiction ” Mr Paul Hoffman has said that American failure to join O.T.C. “ would seriously compromise United “ States world leadership ”. President Eisenhower has said that rejection of O.T.C. “ would be inter.preted throughout the free world T

“ as a lack of genuine interest ” on the part of his country in efforts to expand' trade. And, in his report to the Cabinet on 0.T.C., the Secretary of Commerce (Mr Sinclair Weeks) said that “ with Soviet economic “ activities on the- increase, the “ United States must strengthen its “ co-operation with free nations in “ the trade field. O.T.C. is essential “to this end It must be hoped that Congress will heed these wiser voices.