FREER TRADE PROPHETS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 48, 26 February 1937, Page 8

FREER TRADE PROPHETS

Following on his visit Lo President Roosevelt, Mr. Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, suggests that Britain and, the United States might lead in a policy of freer trade. His plan .seems to be supplementary to the currency co-operation achieved late last year by the United States, Britain, and France; and it would give some' actuality to the pleas that Mr. Cordell Hull, U.S. Secretary of State, has been publishing for years. The link uniting the three countries —America, Britain, and France —is that they are all democratic, and this means much more than it did before Communism, Fascism, and Nazism ousted democracy from the greater part of Europe. If Mr. Runciman and Mr. Cordell Hull succeed in materialising their ideas, every part of the British Empire will be affected. Relevant to the issue are the Anglo-Canadian trade agreement about to be published, and the future of the Ottawa Agreements. The addition lo the Ottawa policy of an overriding clause, by which Ollawa tariffs may be reduced in favour of any reciprocating country, Avas suggested in Sydney the other day by Mr. R. Watt (Secretary of the' League of Nations Union). "Do not," he said, "slam the trade door on other countries." In principle, everybody agrees with this. In practice, tariffs, bilateral agreements, and tradediversion policies arc engaging the attention of most of the political architects.