TARIFF BARRIERS.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18350, 9 June 1931, Page 2

TARIFF BARRIERS.

- . CONSIDERED IN AMERICA. BUSINESS MAN’S OPINION. The world is about to enter a period in which the principal nations will make cross-wise reciprocal tariff arid trade arrangements to get around or climb over the high tariff walls that have been built up by governments in the last decade, in the opinion of James D. Mooney, vice-president of General Motors Corporation in charge of the overseas operations group, expressed in a speech before the Now York Board of Trade in New York City recently. The speech, which has attracted widespread attention throughout the United States, has precipitated new discussion as to whether the isolation policy of Ibe United States is not hurting her own domestic trade. "I am afraid that the most favoured nation clause in commercial treaties is a dead letter,” said Mr Mooney. “The hand-writing is on the wall. High ■tariff barriers throughout the world make the most favoured nation clause impracticable. People will trade! During the next several years, we probably shall sco many crosswise, reciprocal tariff and trade arrangements made among the various nations. This is really something to he generally happy about, for economists and business men, because it is a natural way lo get on with taking us out of the vicious tariff shackles our various governments have put on us during the past ten years. The general horizon for international trade is very promising. The remarkable advances made in the arts of communication and transportation during the past twenty years have actually made economic neighbours of all the nations of the world, regardless of the distance as measured in miles. There is wnued only an adjustment in the allitu to toward trading among the various nations. Tills adjustment, as evidenced by the Auslro-German trading pact, is under way."