Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1938. TRADE AND CO-OPERATION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1938. TRADE AND CO-OPERATION.

T?VERY effort is being made by the American State Department we were told in a cablegram from Washington yesterday to give the announcement of the Anglo-American and Canadian-American trade treaties “a setting of great dignity and to make the event an occasion for renewal of the sentiments of deep British and American friendship.” It is stated also that the Press throughout the American nation interprets the ■conclusion of the treaties ‘‘as a sign to dictators of the underlying' unanimity of the English-speaking democracies.

These are large considerations and the terms in which thev were dilated upon by American and British representatives on an occasion in Washington that no doubt is destined to become historic are well calculated to command atten ion and respect. It may be agreed unreservedly that m the extent to which channels of world trade are opened up with mutual benefit to those who engage in trade, a service will be rendered to humanity. In carrying the policy of economic nationalism to an insane extreme, militarist dictatorships unquestionably are manufacturing and accentuating many of. the troubles, political as well as economic, under which the world is labouring today The disease of ingrowing nationalism is threatening the continued existence of civilisation. We have the humiliating spectacle at present of great nations conspiring against one another in conditions which can have no other outcome than that of making them mutually poorer.

As an attempt to break away boldly from this insanity, open np a clearer international atmosphere and give an example and lead in friendly co-operation between nations, the treaties sinned at Washington on Thursday undoubtedly must command wide approval. At the same time, all the nations concerned, and not least the overseas countries of the British Empire, are called upon to shape their course with due forethought in the new conditions of world trade and relationship it is hoped to open up. No disloyalty to the broad aims proclaimed by the treaty-makers is implied in emphasising the point that the anticipated broadening of trade must proceed, if it is to proceed at all, on a basis of mutual advantage.

The details of the treaties have not, at time of writing, been made known and the full effect of the adjustments agreed upon cannot speedily be made apparent. Some brbad features of the proposed new order have been disclosed, however, and others have long been manifest. Any broad-based trade treaty between Britain and the United States, for example, must imply a more or less important departure from .the inter-imperial economic relationships that were given specific shape in the Ottawa agreements. Some modifications of the system of Imperial preference at the stage to which it has developed are now inevitable and •the ultimate effect upon the economic fortunes of this country and other Dominions may be profound. It is the more necessary that the countries of the overseas Empire should look keenly to their own interests since tire United States frankly accords them no defined place meantime in its schemes for the broadening of world trade. It was stated in one of yesterday’s messages that the Australian Government has been ready and willing for almost three years to enter into trade negotiations with the United States,’’but that the American Government unfortunately is not ready to negotiate with Australia. Theoretically, the United States Government desires to follow up its agreements with Britain and Canada by entering into reciprocal trade relations with the other British Dominions and with countries like Argentina, but it is pointed out that these countries compete in their exports directly against the United States and the question is asked: “'What .is there really to exchange between countries which are equally primary producers?” Still more illuminating and suggestive is the statement attributed to an American commentator: — It is conceivable that if Australia were ready to assure a wide open market for United States automobile;, cinema, and other important manufactured goods, the United States might be ready to negotiate a trade treaty, but such an instrument would have to be so "overwhelmingly in America’s favour that it would be unacceptable to Australia. There is here at leasf a frank and straightforward admission that extremely hard bargaining goes hand in hand with whatever element of altruism enters into the trade extension plans of the United States. With the position yet to be,defined in its details, the broad prospect opened for this country and some of its sister Dominions is that of intensified competition in their principal market that of the United Kingdom. It is at the same time dear that hopes of any compensatory gain in reciprocal trade with the United States are at present extremely slight, if they can be said to exist at all. There can be no doubt that th’e widest possible extension of trade on equitable and mutually advantageous terms is desirable. It seems equally plain, however, —'that of the United Kingdom. It is at the same time clear that to emphasise, for countries like New Zealand and Australia, the necessity of moving enterprisingly with the. times in expediting their own industrial development and in other ways.