Never Better: Anglo – U.S. Relations

Northern Advocate, 28 July 1938, Page 7

Never Better: Anglo - U.S. Relations

RUGBY, July 20. Dealing in his speech in the House of Commons, with Britain’s relations with the United States, the Prime Minister, Mr Chamberlain, expressed the opinion that they had never been better than at the present. Taking up a reference in Sir Archibald Sinclair’s speech on the debt question, Mr Chamberlain said that Earl Stanhope s observations in the House of Lords last Thursday—that as far as the British Government was concerned, the question had never become one which was closed and finished, but very much the other way—made Britain’s attitude perfectly clear. The Prime Minister said he regarded the trade agreement now under negotiation not merely as an attempt to come to a commercial arrangement, but as an effort to demonstrate the possibility of Britain and the United States working together, and as the forerunner of collaboration of a wider application. It was not necessary to display impatience. A commercial treaty of this kind began with an enormous schedule of articles, every one of which had to be discussed and negotiated. They had gone through this great schedule, and agreed upon a great part of it, but, as always happened, certain points arose which offered special difficulty. “I know there is goodwill on both sides,” said Mr Chamberlain, “and I hope we shall not have to wait very long before we are able to announce an agreement.”