RECIPROCAL TRADE TREATY

Southland Times, Issue 22817, 17 February 1936, Page 7

RECIPROCAL TRADE TREATY

SWITZERLAND AND U.S.A. SPONSORED BY SENATE. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) Washington, Feb. 14. The State Department to-day an-, nounced that the reciprocal trade treaty recently negotiated with Switzerland would become effective immediately. There are now 10 such agreements, including those with Cuba, Belgium Haiti, Sweden, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Honduras and Columbia The treaty with Switzerland grants a duty reduction on many American agricultural products and manufactured goods, enlarges quotas and promises no increased duty on others. The American concessions to Switzerland consist principally of duty reductions on watch movements, certain dyes, cheeses and textile specialities. In a broadcast address to-night the Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) indicated that the Administration was prepared to press a reciprocal tariff treaty programme. Stressing the vital bearing of economic affairs on matters of war and peace, he said: “If the world’s economic affairs could be made to prosper by wise domestic management in each country and by a beneficial interchange of trade between them, then the fears and mistrusts that beset nations would diminish, and their peoples would listen with correspondingly less enthusiasm to leaders who called upon them to vindicate themselves in war.”