U.S.A. TARIFF

Evening Star, Issue 19790, 14 February 1928, Page 5

U.S.A. TARIFF

“ SELFISH AND ARBITRARY " FRIENDLY RELATIONS The former chairman of the United States Tariff Commission, Professor F. W. Taussig, of Harvard, writes in the January issue of ‘Foreign iAffairs ’ that France is not alone in her feeling that the American tariff policy is selfish and arbitrary. He paints the differences between “ our courteous gestures” and “our stern realities,” and points out the doubtful wisdom of engaging a department of commerce to promote foreign sales, and at the same time erecting barriers against _ goods that seek entry into America in exchange. Professor Taussig notes a “ curious reversal ” in the attitudes of both France and the United States in regard to tariff rates. “The United States once held to reciprocity, and now stands by the policy of most-favored-nation treatment. Franco onco held to the most-favored-nation policy, and now stands by reciprocity.” “My own sympathies,” he writes, “ are with the principle adopted by the United States, not with that to which this country so long had professed adherence, and which France now maintains. The most-favored-nation basis is simple, reasonable, commendable.” There nevertheless is something to bo said for the French view, according to Professor Taussig. “The poistion taken by Franco is not entirely stubborn, is not entirely without explanation, and is not entirely without justification. That is to he admitted as regards the relations between France and almost all the countries she has been dealing with : and it is so particularly as regards the United States. “The United States, it is true, offers the same terms to all countries; but in substance there are favors to nob one. The countries with whom w r e deal m well say to themselves, evert though they cannot well say it in the formal communications of their foreign representatives, that while we offer everybody the same treatment, wo merely offer the same bad treatment all round.

“ Our rates are .so high, our policy of protection is so intolerant, so allembracing, so inclined to extension to every blessed article on the demands of each interested groun of producers, that our most-tavored-nation policy amounts to universal severity and universal ill-treatment. “ Under such circumstances can we expect any warmth of feeling, any cordial' response to our newly-taken basis of negotiation? “The French have agreed to restore virtually the situation which existed before the present controversy began. . . . The United States offers no change, standing pat on its new-born most-favored-nation policy. The agreement is avowedly temporary.

“What, then, will the United States finally do? The people of this country are recurrently called on to consider just how far they propose to carry their protectionist policy, and just how intolerant they propose to be in the way of keeping out every scrap of imported goods that might _ interfere with any clamorous domestic producer. Will they alwar.s do so?

“ Even those who say most about holding aloof from European complications say much also about the maintenance of friendly relations with all ai ' the promotion of mutual good feeling. Now that we turn to a systematic policy of most-favored-nation treatment, why not put into it some element of real favor and of genuine friendliness? “ It would be no bad outcome of the pending negotiations and debates if we were led to do something toward promoting beneficial trade and good relations not with Franco only, but with all the world.”