IN JEOPARDY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23505, 20 May 1938, Page 10

IN JEOPARDY

TRADE NEGOTIATIONS BRITAIN AND AMERICA 9ERIOUS DIFFICULTY REPORTED (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph— Copyright) LONDON, May 18. The trade negotiations between Britain and the United States are reported to be in jeopardy, although It is too early yet to say that a collapse is inevitable. This much has been learnt by the Australian Associated Press. No official announcement has been made. There is not the slightest doubt, the Associated Press further states, that the position is very serious. ANGLO-AMERICAN TRADE TWO-FIFTHS OF WORLD VOLUME IMPORTANCE OF NEGOTIATIONS Writing recently in the London Daily Telegraph, on the advisabililty of a trade agreement between Great Britain and the United States, Mr Leonard J. Reid, city editor of the Daily Telegraph, who visited the United States to make his own investigations, said:— ft is not possible to reproduce even a sample of the wealth of facts and figures presented in this brochure (the Royal Institute of International Affaiirs publication). Here are some of the facts cleaily brought out by the institute:— The United Kingdom and the United States represent nearly 30 per cent, of the world market, while, If the rest of the British Empire is included, the proportion is over 40 per cent. Two-fifthd of the entire trade of the world is involved m these negotiations for increased trade and lowering of tariff barriers. That by itself is an arresting fact. Effect on World Trade 1 As for rest of the world, will a Britain-United States trade agreement help them? Here, we are told, with the caution which marks the whole document, that: “Although it may be doubted whether the direct economic benefits to other countries would be far-reaching, their indirect benefits from a stimulation of trade between the two greatest trading countries in the world might be considerable.” The treaty procedure which the American Government is required to follow ensures much greater publicity in the United States than can be paralleled here; and representative business associations on this side have expressed their anxiety to the president of the Board oi Trade and their desire for more complete information. , There is little doubt in my mind of two things; first, that Mr Cordell Hull will have to face a much stronger opposition than Mr Oliver Stanley: secondly, that the growth In public appreciation of the value of concrete agreement between the two democracies is so rapid that the project will win through against all its individual opponents. Position of the Dominions The keynote of the present negotiations, the fundamental basis, is that the American agricultural exporter must obtain some advantages in return for which the British industrial exporter will gain substantial advantages. The mere statement of the position thus raises a far broader question, for the trade talks now in progress are not merely between Britain and the United States, but between America and all the British self-governing dominions. And it is clearly more in their power than it is in ours to grant those concessions which the Washington Administration feels obliged to obtain for its agricultural communities. " In the middle of last year it appeared that this fact, involving, of course, Some modification of the Ottawa agreement, might be a fatal obstacle to the whole project. Now there is every reason to think that the conversations between British dominions and Washington are proceeding with increasing smoothness. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand have been forced by the logic of world events to recognise very much more clearly the great importance of working together with the United States.