REDUCTION OF TARIFFS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18545, 3 November 1934, Page 5

REDUCTION OF TARIFFS

AMERICA’S NEW POLICY “WE HAVE REPENTED” SECRETARY ’S ADMISSION (Klee. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) NEW YORK, Nov. 3. Admitting that the United States had set a vicious example of high tariffs, Mr. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, to-night declared: “We have now repented." “Extreme nationalism, if persisted in, is destined soon to wreck the entire structure of western civilisation," he said, in an address read to the Foreign Trade Association by Mr. Francis B. Sayre, assistant Secretary of State.

Mr. Hull, who is resting in Pinehurst, recovering from bronchial trouble, said:- —“In entering upon negotiations for trade agreements authorised by the Act of Junc e J2 of this year, we willingly and frankly admit that we'erred'in - the past, and that we have now repented. Just as we set a vicious example in erecting trade barriers of high tariffs, which induced others to follow us, now we are asking other nations to join us in an attempt to undo the damage our collective action has worked. We wish to break down all artificial and excessive impediments put in the way of world commerce, not only in our own interest, but for the benefit of all others as well, since only by restoring the whole world can individual countries hope to remain economically healthy for Jong." In a telegram Mr. James A. Farrell, chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council, said:—“We are seeking to rehabilitate international commerce in a way that will benefit not a single nation, but all nations, not a group of nations, but the whole world. The causes of the decline in the level of world trade are various, but among the most serious are the unnecessary and artificial barriers which hamper the healthy interchange of commodities."