UNPOPULAR VIEWS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 June 1931, Page 7

UNPOPULAR VIEWS

NEW ECONOMIC ADVISER TO ■ UNITED STATES';" * BLAMES OWN COUNTRY , ':, WASHINGTON, lltli June. “A world of embittered and secluded national States, between which capital dare not move and commerce exists' weakly on sufferance.” Such is the tragic future, according to Dr. Herbert Feis, the netvly-appointed economic adviser to the State Department, if the United States continues and extends' her present protective tariff. Asserting that the anxieties wlnih beset the American people are in part “a consequence of our- own blunders,” Dr. Feis strongly contends that the Smooth-Hawley tariff was a mistake, and more strongly that additional tariffs and embargoes, as demanded by some American interests, would intensify the evil results. The embargo on Russian products he considers sound. “The 1930 tariff was an outright contradiction of the interests and purposes to which we seemed to be committed By swiftly wounding foreign industry it intensified the fall in the raw material markets from which all American producers suffered. Still more complete protective measures will impose a still further strain on foreign debtors, new disappointments to foreign producers, and new anxieties to American investors. The work of increasing our own wealth by developing that of others, for which our, capital resources and engineering skill equip us, will then remain undone, and the possibility wasted.”

Washington is asking what the appointment of one holding these views to the position of economic adviser to the State Department means.