AMERICAN TARIFFS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 143, 19 June 1931, Page 9

AMERICAN TARIFFS

d ECONOMIST’S CONDEMNATION Lil ADVISER AT WASHINGTON d d f WASHINGTON, June 11. j “A world of embittered and secluded tl national States, between which capital j dare not move and commerce exists 0 weakly on sufferance. . .” c Such is the tragic future, according to Dr. Herbert Feis. newly-appointed I economic adviser to the State Department, if the United States continues and extends her present protective ) tariff. After asserting that the anxieties which beset tho American people are ; in part “a consequence of our own ' blunders.” Dr. Feis strongly contends that the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was a. mistake, and more strongly that ad- ( ditional tariffs and embargoes, as demanded by some American interests, would intensify the evil results The embargo on Russian products he considers sound. “We invested £3,000,000.000 in foreign countries,” he remarked, “knowing that in supplying the means of improving the economic conditions of foreign countries we would make richer customers, and that in bringing under command the natural resources stored [abroad the American people would benefit in common with others.

"The American banking system, its merchant marine, and other agencies were employed to promote foreign commerce. Now we arc stopped in fear and disillusionment. “The 1930 tariff was an outright con- | tradiction of the interests and purposes to which we seemed to be committed. By swiftly wounding foreign industry it intensified tho fall in the raw material markets from which all American producers suffered. .‘The logical outcome of the present trend is a nationally-isolated Government controlled by an economic system. Between this world and the world of widespread international exchange, toward which American capital has boon contributing so much, wo now hang suspended. “Still more complete protective measures will impose a still further strain, 'on foreign debtors, new disappointments to foreign producers, and new anxieties to American investors. “The work of increasing our own wealth by developing that of others, for which our capital resources and engineering skill equip us. will then remain vadona ant* the possibility was! Washington is asking what tho ap pointment of one holding these views to tho position of economic adviser to tho State Department means.