TOWARD FREER TRADE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 103, 25 January 1939, Page 5

TOWARD FREER TRADE

Anglo-American Treaty

"The United States is. 1 imagine, the touchiest country in the world when it comes to tariffs,’’ said Air. Raymond Gram Swing, broadcasting to British listeners by relay from New York on the Anglo-American trade treaty. "That is the result of a long history. Throtig’h most of our existence we have been a debtor nation. Then during the World War the United States ceased to be a debtor country, and became a creditor country; but the basic laet somehow escaped recognition. D o went on behaving like a debtor nation, we raised tariffs still higher, and refused to facilitate the payment of debts to us in goods and services, and we insisted on continuing to export as usual. Aud that has been one of the causes of the economic woes from which the entire world is suffering. National habits are hard to break. Such habits in individuals the psychologist calls ‘conditioned rellexes.’ and one of Americas conditioned rellexes is to say tint! lowering tariffs hurts our workers. Now it was in defiance of this conditioned reflex that the Secretary of State (Air. Cordell Hull) set out to make new trade agreements with foreign countries. The first agreements he made were so insignificant in the ground covered and the volume of trade affected that they aroused little opposition. But Mr. Hull had started something, and if one agreement was small, 18 agreements began to mount up, and Mr. Hull was changing the American system by nibbling away at it. He put off the agreements with the countries we trade with most—they were to come at the end; and the great one was to be with Britain. America’s chief custoiner. Well, the agreement . with Britain has been signed and published, and. judging from its reception, it is a success.”