NOT ONE-SIDED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 22 December 1938, Page 12

NOT ONE-SIDED

ANGLO-AMERICAN AGREEMENT lßy Air Mail—Own Correspondent! LONDON, 24th November. The Anglo-American trade agreement is by no means as one-sided as pessimistic prophets on this side of the Atlantic had foreseen. Indeed, the President of the Board of Trade can confidently afford to overlook the hypothetical political and diplomatic values of j the result, and to present it to the: United Kingdom as a sound example of !

economic bargaining. American concessions to us in our export trade will j have especially beneficial repercussions j on our textile industries —notably linen, wool, and, to less an extent, cotton— ! while a large variety of smaller articles, cumulatively important, are also affected. In short, the concessions affect onequarter of our exports to the United States, valued in 1936 at £11.000.000, and the stabilisation of the American duly on our immense whisky exports will cause gratification among distillers. who reaped £5,000.000 out of this golden trade two years ago. Superficially it would seem that our corresponding concessions to America are made a little unfairly at the expense of Canadian exports, but in fact we have made further agreements with that Dominion to compensate them for these* reverses. TO AMERICA Our import duty adjustments to the benefit of America affect, broadly speaking, goods to the value of £lO,- ! 000,000. A popular feature of the agreement will relate to something that does not appear in it— the fact that! earlier rumours of heavy duty concessions to American motor-car manufacturers are proved to be baseless, thereby permitting our manufacturers to turn all their attention to the challenge of the heavily-subsidised German cheap-car exports to Britain. One of the biggest duly reductions, that relat-; ing tj soft woods, affects the home industry scarcely at all—here, in particular. is a clause at the expense of Canada —but there may be some grumbling at the reduced rate on apples. The agreement shows a much closer co-operation between Britain and Canada in coming to terms with America than had been expected. Typewriter manufacturers in the United Kingdom will not be too pleased at the reduced duty on the American machines, however, even though the portable is not affected. The effects of this trade agreement will be felt not only in the U.S.A. and in Britain and Canada, but in the British Colonies. I understand that it will call for very little Parliamentary legislation, and that the bulk of the agreement will be operative as from Ist Januarq.