WORLD TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 64, 13 September 1943, Page 3

WORLD TRADE

POST-WAR PLANNING

BUSINESS MAN'S PROPOSALS O.C. LONDON, July 9. Many business men in Great Britain believe that the commercial and industrial salvation of the world after the war is to be found in the scheme for a World Trade Alliance. Its author is a Welshman, Sir Edgar Jones, K.rJ.E. His proposals have been explained and discussed for the past two years at private meetings of industrialists and trade union leaders. The Rt. Hon. Viscount Davidson, G.C.V.0., C.H., C.8., and the Rt. Hon. Sir Walter Citrine, K.8.E., support his views. _ The object of the proposed alliance is to prevent the recurrence in the future of mass unemployment throughout the world, to ensure the full disposal of the output of the main export industries of every nation, and to expand the consuming capacity of the world's markets, particularly those of backward and undeveloped countries with a low standard of living. The measures laid down for the achievement of these aims postulate that while man has solved the technical problems of production and transport, being able today to produce the necessities of life —food, clothing, and shelter—in quantities amply sufficient to meet the full requirements of the human race and also to transport foodstuffs, raw materials, and goods of all kinds speedily by land, by water, and by air from one part of the globe to another, he has failed to solve the problem of disposing of the wealth of production he now commands. To this end it is proposed to regulate the export of all major products, whether raw materials, foodstuffs, semi-manufactured or finished goods, by means of international agreements between the main export industries of every country. Each item or group of items, as may be desirable, would be the subject of a separate agreement, and for these conventions the International Wheat Agreement is taken as a suitable model in many respects, though each agreement would reflect the particular usages of the trade it covered.

SHARING OF MARKETS.

Under these agreements a share in the world's markets would be allotted to each of the contracting countries, and the price of each product would be stabilised within an agreed range. The agreements would be subject to revision from time to time. These conventions would be negotiated in most instances by the national organisations of the industries concerned, and in the remainder wholly or in part by Government officials, but in every case under the auspices and the supervision of the Governments of the contracting countries. Consumer interests would b3 fully represented. The numerous cartels and similar arrangements which existed before the war prove, it is contended, that the negotiation of such agreements is quite practicable and presents no insurmountable difficulties.

An integral part of the scheme is the acceptance by every country of the prime necessity for maintaining equilibrium in its normal external trade between the total value of its imports of goods and services and that of its exports of goods and services. Special arrangements are included for the development or relief of countries which cannot at present strike such a balance, and the transactions thus involved, whether import or export, would not be regarded as normal external trade, but be treated as a separate account. For this purpose the establishment of an international commission for selecting and carrying out projects designed to raise the standard of living in backward or depressed countries is dovetailed into the proposals for international trade agreements for stable prices and for balanced external trade and is essential to them. The necessary foodstuffs, raw materials, and manufactures for this development work would come from any unavoidable surpluses in the trades regulated by international agreement, and the. disposal of such surpluses would thus not interfere with the flow of international trade through its regulated channels. But the commission's requirements in goods and commodities not in surplus supply would lead to an expansion in the output of the export industries producing them.

THE BACKWARD PEOPLES

To emphasise the value of such a commission it is1 pointed out that even a slight rise in the consuming capacity of the millions of poverty-stricken inhabitants of Asia alone would favourably affect the export demand for a wide range of primary and secondary products. As the backward countries of the world are in need of all kinds of public works — highways, railways, airways, power stations, irrigating systems, medical, housing, and many other facilities and utilities—there would be no lack of suitable projects for the commission to examine and consider. Whatever the specific nature of the work undertaken its beneficial results would be immediately and increasingly • visible, as materials and machinery would be required for the constructional work and for the operation of the plant, while not only would the .men employed on the project need food, shelter, and clothing, but on its completion spare parts or replacements or some form c|i servicing would also be required.

To finance the commission's purchases a small percentage levy on the world's export trade transactions, that is, on all the export bills of every country, is proposed. It ' would be automatically collected by the banking institutions which handled the bills. This levy, it is claimed, would, in effect, be an insurance premium against the risk of world-wide mass unemployment with all the calculable and incalculable losses it would entail.

CENTRAL. CLEARING BUREAU.

No unwieldy organisation is contemplated for the' purposes of this World Trade Alliance. Apart from the international committees necessary for the individual trade agreements and the development commission (which would need a special staff of investigators), a compact central clearing bureau staffed by high-grade experts appointed by the council of the Governments forming the alliance would suffice, it is claimed, to supervise and co-ordinate the working of the' trade agreements and the international clearing operations involved.

As regards the monetary aspect, it is contended that with the world's commerce regulated on the basis of stable prices and equilibrium established in the normal external trade" of every country it would be much easier to deyise a monetary system for facilitating the international exchange in goods and services than under the old conditions-of unregulated world trade and fluctuating prices.