A DEADLOCK

Grey River Argus, 24 May 1947, Page 5

A DEADLOCK

GENEVA TRADE TALKS

U.S.A. NOT MOVED it BRITISH PRESSURE

(Received 9.40. p.m.). LONDON, ay 23. A special correspondent at Geneva of the Times says : — The draft Charter of the International Trade and Employment Organisation is over prone to qualify its statements and to provide escape clauses, until it seems that a coach and four could he driven through almost every article of it. There are highly complicated permissive, and prohibitive clauses. They are expressed in language that is so involved that their meaning is often to be disentangled only with the greatest difficulty. Lucidity is not its strong point, although the Charter was well thrashed out in advance. The chance. of success or failure of the conference depends on negotiations between the United States and other' countries, especially the United Kingdom and British Dominions.

The correspondent adds: The Bill before the United States Congress to increase the tariff on imported wool has thrown an element of uncertainty over the whole of the proceedings. Left to themselves, the experts might hope to make some progress, but the negotiators have not been kept clear of political pressure and of intervention. The shadow of the Washington Congress always lies' across the discussions. The pressure from business interests is less than was expected. The sharp clashes over the American wool duties should not obscure the relative success of. the other’ negotiations.

The Times, in a leading article, says: “There is an escape clause in the American Trade Agreements Act, by which concessions may be nullified, if damage is threatened to the American domestic producers. This has diminished the reliability of all of the agreements to which the United States may be a party’’. The article also discusses national or group interests affecting the Geneva bargaining. It says: “They make a complex discord which may not be easily removed”.

The London Daily Telegraph correspondent says: The deadlock between Australia and America has affected the entire range of British Commonwealth negotiations at the trade conference. New Zealand and South Africa, as secondary supplie:of wool, are just as interested as Australia in securing a reduction of the American wool tariff. Australia would not agree to give up or reduce her preferential advantages, unless she secures substantial compensatory advantages on the American market. The position would be eased if, as the negotiations proceed, a wide range of Items in which Australia is interested as a secondary supplier was granted concessions in bilateral discussions which the United States is conducting with countries classed as principal suppliers.