U.S.-BRITISH TRADE PACT

Northern Advocate, 15 December 1937, Page 6

U.S.-BRITISH TRADE PACT

According to cable advice received from Australia last week, important alterations in trade relations of the Empire and its constituent members are expected to take place in the near future. At the moment Australia and New Zealand representatives are in close consultation regarding trade relationships between the two countries divided by the Tasman Sea, and there is much talk about the Ottawa pacts and the pending trade pact between the United States and Britain. In connection. with the latter it is a truism that the United Kingdom and the United States lead in world trade. They buy 28 per cent, of the world’s imports and sell 24 per cent, of all exports. An agreement between the two countries might, it is urged, be the basis of a regime of freer trading that would be a constructive contribution to the cause of peace. Sir Arthur Wilier!, former head of the Press Division of the British Foreign Office, who recently visited the United States to inquire into the problem, has summarised the American argument following on the existing trade treaties of the British Empire, the United States, France and the Oslo group as follows; “If all these groups) could merge into a single vast freer trading area, one thing would certainly happen. They would derive increased prosperity from the commerce that the merger would bring them. And . another thing might happen. , Germany and Italy, and even : Japan, might feel that it would pay them to join it, and relax ; their quest of self-sufficiency. If j they did, then appeasement nego- 1

nations would really have been opened up between the democracies and the dictatorships, and, if they went well, those negotiations would not necessarily be confined to an effort merely to improve economic relations. They might be extended to political questions such as the stopping of the armament race, the settlement of the just grievances of the discontented countries, and so on.” It is useful to recall some editorial comments which “The Times” made when discussing recently the negotiations for a trade agreement between Britain and the United States. There is no need at this time of day, the paper said, to dwell upon the importance of seizing every opportunity for extending the field of AngloAmerican co-operation, but it is possible to exaggerate the pacific influence of international trade. Economic appeasement, says “The Times,” must accompany political appeasement, for which indeed it may usefully prepare the way. If the English-speaking peoples cannot effect this end who can?