BRITISH TRADE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 169, 19 June 1931, Page 7

BRITISH TRADE

ACTIVITY IN ARGENTINA. ATTITUDE OF UNITED STATES. CRITICAL REPORT. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received Juno 19, 8-55 a.m. WASHINGTON, June 18. The British trade propaganda in Argentina is described as a veiled attack on the friendship between the United States and the Argentine in a report compiled by Mr George J. Elder, chief of the Commerce Department’s Latin American Division.

The report names Sir Malcolm Robertson, British Ambassador to Argentina, as a chief proponent of the slogan: “Buy from those who buy from us.” He also states that the visit of the Prince of Wales was designed primarily as an attack upon American mercantile supremacy. The most skilful and influential commercial propagandists in Argentina are British statesmen, merchants, bankers and others, who for years have endeavoured to instil and wield their influence in favour of British goods. Mr Elder adds that he believes American merchants and manufacturers have little to fear from British competition, because ono fourth of America’s exports to the Argentine are goods that Britain does not lhanufacture, and half of them of such a nature that British factories cannot turn them out now at competitive prices. Mr Elder points to the reorganisation of Britain’s entire social and economic structure as necessary before American price competition can be met.