CABINET'S TRADE POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 128, 1 June 1937, Page 8

CABINET'S TRADE POLICY

No clear indication has yet been given of the •■effect- upon the Dominions of the British Cabinet changes. As touching the gTeat questions of the moment—foreign affairs and defence-r-the British policy will not be altered, and the principal effect of the personal changes in defence portfolios willbe that the discussions begun at the Imperial Conference by Mr. Baldwin's Ministers will be continued by Mr. Chamberlain's. There is not, however, an equal assurance of continuity in trade policy. The personal position of the Cabinet on this issue is that Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald remains at the Dominions Office, Mr. Ormsby-Gore at the Colonial Office, and Mr. W. S. ,Morrison at the Ministry of Agriculture, but Mr. Oliver Stanley succeeds Mr. Walter Runciman as President of the Board of Trade. The earlier change in Agriculture, from Mr. Walter Elliot to Mr. Morrison, might have indicated the. intention to reconsider the Elliot plans, not to the extent of dropping them, but so as to place them upon a. more economic basis.. This expectation ■is supported by Mr. Morrison's statement on May 27 which outlined' a plan for stimulating production principally, by increasing fertility. It is significant that Mr. Morrison described the plan as one to increase the productivity of the land "by means which were consistent with and not opposed to the normal development of agriculture, on economic lines in,times of peace.'' More obscure is the new Cabinet's position as touching intra-Imperial preference. Mr. Runciman at the Board of' Trade was most active in negotiating a series of bilateral trade agreements with foreign nations, and some of these presented obstacles to the complete achievement of the Ottawa plans. In giving the Dominions an increasing share of the Home market Britain was hampered by her commitments in these bilateral agreements. Mr. Runcim'an's most recent activity was his endeavour with Mr. Cordell Hull to "find the foundations !on which a trade agreement with the United States could be built." On May 25 Mr. Ruhciman told the House of Commons that discussions at the Imperial Conference would turn oh some economic questions "with direct bearing on the negotiations for an Anglo-American trade agreement and on British relations with the United States." Two days later, it was reported that the Imperial Conference had decided "that all matters arising from the Ottawa Agreements shall not be discussed at the Conference, but, shall be subject to bilateral conversations.

. . . Thus Ottawa virtually disappears from the Imperial Conference agenda."

The Anglo-American negotiations [turned on the possibility of modifying the Ottawa \ Agreements, and one Dominion (Australia) intimated plainly to the American Ambassador-at-Large that "America would have to reciprocate before Australia could seriously negotiate a treaty with America." Did the other Dominions make similar statements at the Conference? And does this explain the disappearance of Ottawa; from the agenda—and the departure of Mr. Runciman from the Board of Trade?