U.S.A. ATTEMPT

Grey River Argus, 20 November 1941, Page 3

U.S.A. ATTEMPT

To Dictate to Australia A LIMITATION OF INDUSTRIES. (Rec. 12.55.) CANBERRA, Nov. 19. The Commonwealth Government has informed the United States it cannot accept its trade proposals which would limit the future development of Australian industries. The United States has made proposals in trade discussions. These were. Firstly: There should be no extension of the existing Australian industries that are producing goods of a kind which America 1 is supplying to Australia. Secondly: There shall be no estab--I’shment of new industries to produce this kind of goods. The American viewpoint was that it would be unreasonable to expect America to build new plants or expand existing industries to supply Australia's urgent war needs, and to be shut out of the Australian market as soon as the war was over. In declining to agree to these proposals, the Australian Government has intimated that it felt that 1 arliament should not be fettered for ye'ars ahead on the matter of fiscal The Australian Government further'contended that far-reaching trade agreements might only prolong the war because they would be equivalent to telling the people of Occupied Europe that, no matter how the war ended, they would be shut out of the British-American economic sphere after the war.