The Dominion MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1943. TRADE AND POST-WAR POLICY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 19, 18 October 1943, Page 4

The Dominion MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1943. TRADE AND POST-WAR POLICY

The special committee of the New Zealand Manufacturers Association, which considered points “arising out of the future control and administration of the system of importations,” commenced its investigations on the assumption that some form of control would be continued “at least temporarily” after the war. The Minister of Industries and Commerce, however, expressed the view that “import control will be a general feature of the economic life of nations generally in the future.” Mr. Sullivan, apparently, has reached the conclusion that the principle of control which fits in with the general policy of the Socialist Party has come to stay. It would not be difficult to find evidence, elsewhere, of a belief that some form of control will continue for a period after the war. But there is a vital difference between the extension of a system of control to meet unprecedented conditions, such as will exist immediately after the conclusion of hostilities, and its adoption as a fixed principle in world trade. Control may be the most practical means of preventing collapse in an impoverished and war-weary world, but there do not appear to have been ariy outstanding advocates of it as a desirable peimanent order. Indeed, it would seem to run counter to the spirit of the Atlantic Charter, ’and certainly to the terms of the lease-lend agreements, which are regarded as steps to the practical application of the Charter’s principles. The basic agreement —that between the United States and Great Britain—provides for “the elimination of all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce and to the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers/’ Further, it aims at an expansion in “the exchange and consumption of goods which„aie the material foundations of the liberty and welfare of all peoples. . It would be a difficult matter to reconcile import control, which is a direct and drastic form of the restriction of the domestic market to outside suppliers, with the wider aspects of the Charter and the leaselend agreement, but quite logical to regard an extension of control, to meet exceptionalYircurnstances, as a preliminary to the greater freedom of world trade outlined in the international declaration and agreement mentioned. This Dominion, of all countries, would not be in a position to deny that import control was designed and used to restiict trade, for it adopted that course, prior to the outbreak of war, for that veiy purpose. It cut down the value of imports by several millions of pounds in a single year. It is significant that the recent United Nations conference on food and agriculture at Hot Springs denounced “international trade barriers and restrictions,” and it is difficult to see how import control could be excluded from that category. Possibly the known liking of the Minister of Industries and Commerce for State control and direction has led him to expect, and hope, that a system of import control will be “a general feature of the economic life of nations generally,” but there is more evidence overseas of a tendency to regard it as a phase, and only a phase, in the process of trade recovery after the shattering experience of years of world war.