CASE FOR FREER TRADE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1940, Page 3

CASE FOR FREER TRADE

IDEALS BEHIND AMERICAN PROGRAMME. Americans who prefer to earn money doing the things they can do best and to buy from their neighbours the things those neighbours make best can without much difficulty understand the ideas behind the Cordell Hull trade programme, says the “Christian Science Monitor,” which gives the following simple illustration: —Mr Jones knows how to make good shoes at the lowest possible price. Mr Brown knows how to produce overcoats on the same basis. Each raises his standard of living by exchanging his wares for those of the other. Each would lower it :f he insisted on using part of his time in a less efficient attempt to produce for himself the things Ills neighbour can produce more cheaply for him. It would take an office worker weeks or months to make a piece of furniture that he can buy with half a week’s pay, and then he would not have the expert workmanship that he can buy. This is why trade is essential to a rising standard of living. It is one of the best arguments for extending international trade by the gradual and wise process of the Hull reciprocal trade agreements. For countries, like individuals, are not equally endowed with skills or materials.