NEW TRADE AGREEMENTS

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20732, 16 February 1939, Page 8

NEW TRADE AGREEMENTS

Trade agreements have, for the time being at least, replaced political treaties in the public interest, particularly in Europe. The state of comparative political peace existing at present has permitted governmental and private attention to be paid to the weaknesses of the international trade position, and in the process of opening the channels of trade much of the discontent that leads to political tension may be removed. It is unhappily true that Central European countries are at present limited to barter agreements, but even these may to some extent set the wheels of commerce moving again, providing that the intentions of those seeking barter trade are to serve the ends of commerce rather than to gain a strategic advantage from a political point of view. Four trade agreements among Germany, Italy, Poland and Norway are to be signed this week. In addition, a French official has gone to Germany to conclude an agreement, Britain is negotiating in the Balkans, and Germany is reported to have entered into an extensive barter scheme with co-operative agricultural interests in the mid-Western States of America. The reaction of the United States Government to this arrangement is interesting. It is not proposed to interfere with the deal as long as it is not accompanied by artificial currency devices and does not interfere with the Government’s reciprocal trade agreements programme. Germany’s anxiety to foster foreign trade shows how vain is the hope of that country of becoming entirely self-contained. Several years of intensive activity have failed to satisfy the requirements of the nation from internal resources. Everything possible has been sacrificed to the cause of armaments and national self-sufficiency, until now when Germany is forced to admit the need for foreign trade, she finds herself so short of foreign exchange facilities that she can trade only by barter, a method that has not the appeal of cash transactions. Still, the desire to trade with other countries is to be welcomed and should be fostered and if possible brought back to a sounder basis.