Five-Year Plan for World Trade

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 112, 4 February 1933, Page 16

Five-Year Plan for World Trade

t 4 lias only t 0 examine tlle S eneral situation in the world to-day to realise that the cause of the economic depression lies in the n H lack of equilibrium existing between production and consumption. The first has increased enormously while the latter has decreased almost as much. The tariff policy which nations have adopted since the war is undoubtedly responsible for the lack of balance.” says M. Yves le Trocquer (the distinguished French statesman and economist, who has been Minister of Public Works in four French Cabinets) in an interview with a representative of “The British Trade Review. ’ “Every country has closed its frontiers and raised up barriers against its neighbours. This intense protectionism has resulted in increasing the cost and sale prices of commodities at home, which in turn has proportionately reduced the purchasing power of money and created a decreased consumption, at a moment when simple logic would have made us accentuate international exchange of goods. How can this situation be remedied? “The only answer is—by returning to free trade. It. seems to me. however, that more Is needed than simply to proclaim the virtue of a principle on which most people agree, but which nations, after stressing its importance, immediately set at nought in their everyday life. •'Nothing is more disappointing than to draw up a programme without fixing a time limit for its execution: we have chosen a date, five years lienee, by which our plan must be carried out. "Why have we adopted a scheme that will take five years to materialise? Simply because history teaches us that in the past every big economic change and readjustment of customs has always taken several years to complete. "This delay of five years is necessary for the following reasons: "The interests at stake are of such magnitude that we shall have to go slowly and not risk endangering them by undue haste. In other words,

before building up our economic house we must collect all the data necessary for its sound construction. To organise a Quinquennial Plan of such importance requires the most precise documentation, and all the needs and resources of the various countries taking part in the scheme will have to be tabulated. “We have doubtless quite a lot of general information of a commercial nature already, but it does not cover the whole field of inquiry and needs supplementing on certain essential points. An Office of Documentation will therefore be created to fill up the gaps in our information. "The documentation to be collected will deal with (he following subjects:—(l) Raw materials, (2) industrial, and agricultural supplementary products, (3) competitive industrial and agricultural products. II hy this distinction? Because where the first two are concerned all countries agree more or less on the necessity of reverting to free trade, while a similar solution in the case of number three would not prove beneficial in every ease. Certain competitive industrial and agricultural commodities can be made the subject of co-operation and entente, but there are quite a number of others to which such an entente would be disastrous. “For the latter class of commodities we shall therefore apply an entirely different formula, the formula of compensation. In other word*, we shall create an Office of Compensation whose task will be to make good any loss incurred by any particular industry through the entente to which it has adhered. This office will not itself make good the damage, but after assessing its value it will ensure that Industries that have benefited unduly from the entente will compensate those who have suffered. The organisation of these two offices will take two years to carry out. “Once this spade work has been done, we shall systematically set about lowering all Customs barriers between nations on the lines which I have just enunciated.”