AMERICAN TRADE PROPOSALS

Southland Times, Issue 24598, 21 November 1941, Page 5

AMERICAN TRADE PROPOSALS

AUSTRALIAN REFUSAL LIMITING DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIES (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) CANBERRA, Nov. 20. The Commonwealth Government has informed the United States that it cannot accept proposals which would limit the future development of Australian industries. The United States proposals in the trade discussions were: (1) No extension of existing Australian industries nroducing goods of a kind which America is supplying Australia. (2) No establishment of new industries to produce this kind of goods. The American viewpoint was that it would be unreasonable to expect America to build new plants to expand existing industries to supply Australia’s urgent war needs and be shut out of the Australian market as soon as the war is over. In declining to agree to the proposals the Australian Government

stated it felt that Parliament should not be fettered for years ahead on a matter of fiscal policy. The Government further contended that far-reaching trade agreements might prolong the war because it would be equivalent to telling the people of Occupied Europe that no matter how the war ended they would be shut out of the British-American economic sphere after the war.