INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Evening Star, Issue 25926, 18 October 1946, Page 7

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

REMOVAL OF BARRIERS WORLD ECONOMIC RECONSTRUCTION (Rec. 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 17. The leader of the Australian delegation, Dr H. C. Coombs, made a fivepoint statement of the principles 4ti Australia’s international trade policy at the Secondary Plenary Session of the Preparatory Committee for International Trade and Employment: . First, member Governments, should undertake measures to ensure within - their own borders full employment to give their people the means of buying the products of their own and other , countries. Secondly, . member Governments should undertake to enable their people to buy the products'of other countries up to the limit of their national, resources. Thirdly, member Governments should undertake to develop fully their resources, enabling them to become a valuable part of world economy. Fourthly, member Governments should jointly and severally take action to protect primary producers against violent fluctuations of prices and incomes. ... Fifthly, the rules and structure of the international organisation for Government international trade should be so framed as to assist membeF Governments to fulfil their obligations. Only on these conditions could the organisation be established on joint secure foundations. U.S.A. POLICY. Mr Clair Wilcox, stating the United States’ policy, declared that unless the task of economic, reconstruction could be brought to completion there could be no advance in nutrition and health culture or the establishment of political* order. The United States held the first . principle to be a substantial reduction, of existing barriers to international trade. . ' Secondly, trade should be multi-late-ral-rather than bi-lateral. Thirdly, international trade should be nou-discriminatory. (This principle would require every nation to give equal treatment to the commerce of an.) ' , Fourthly, because prosperity and stability in industry and agriculture are so intimately related to international trade, stabilisation and trade policies must be consistent with each other. (It should be recognised that the advantages of abundant trade cannot be released if the nations, seek to solve their problems by exporting their . unemployment to their neighbours.) Fifthly, the rules governing international commerce should be so drafted that they applied, with equal fairness and force to all nations, regardless of whether their internal economies were organised on the basis of individualism, collectivism, Socialism, Communism, or any other system. Declaring United States willingness to negotiate on the provisions of the draft charter which it had drawn up, Mr Wilcox said: “It will doubtless be remarked that the United States has, not always in the past practised the gospel it now presumed to teach. This I admit, but the fact that, we sinned in the past should not be taken to justify all of us in sinning in th« future to our mutual harm.”