AMERICAN TARIFF POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 February 1940, Page 6

AMERICAN TARIFF POLICY

GREATEST ISSUE OF PRESENT SESSION. The greatest issue of the present session of the United States Congress will, barring unexpected developments in the war, be the Hull trade agreement programme, writes a Washington correspondent, Mr Erwin D. Canham. In June the special legislative authority which has permitted the Administration to negotiate and put into efl’ect trade treaties without ratification by the Senate will expire. Unless the authority is extended the Hull programme will come to a slow death. And with it will be sacrificed the conviction that the greatest contribution the United States can make to ultimate peace is the effort to keep open and vital some channels of trade. Extension of the legislative authority is going to be very difficult indeed. Perhaps it will prove impossible. For partisan reasons the Republicans in Congress are prepared "ch bloc” to oppose extension of the programme, although many Republicans in the country believe in it. Though the Republicans arc a minority in Congress, they arc joined, by a wide fringe of Democrats whose local interests'have been trodden upon by various trade agreements. The copper senators, the lumber senators, the beef bloc, the cheese cohort (yes. actually) —all these special groups which in the old days raised American tariffs to mountainous levels—are now joining together to cripple the Hull programme. In the long run. it must bo apparent that the trade agreement programme is of the very greatest importance to Groat Britain and the Dominions. It is the longest step the United States has over taken toward co-operation with the freer-trade nations of the world. Its continuance and extension could be the greatest contribution to i sound ponce.