Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

George Ericson (Christian Science Monitor), January 18, 1947:

16* * * The way must be freed wherever possible for less restrictive trade. And the impasse must somehow be avoided that followed World War I * * Either we reduce our exports, grant larger loans, give away the excess, or accept more foreign goods via reciprocity. The ITO looks like one avenue down which an eventual solution may be found."

Stanley Ferguson (New York Journal of Commerce), January 14, 1947: "No industry in the United States has a greater interest than the maritime industry in the important reciprocal trade hearings opening in Washington and it would be unfortunate indeed if this industry should adopt a passive attitude toward these hearings on the grounds that it cannot oppose high tariffs without weakening its own claim to subsidy aid from the Government * * *. It stands to reason that the larger and more stable our foreign trade, the smaller will be the demands of the shipping industry for Government subsidy aid *. Yet all signs indicate that the program is in danger and faces emasculation unless those who require it mobilize their strength and resources at least to the extent of its strong opponents

* *

* ""

*

Lawrence Fertig (New York World Telegram), March 3, 1947:

"The purpose of the reciprocal trade treaties is not to permit a flood of foreign merchandise to come in free, but to induce other nations to lower their tariff barriers to the same extent we decrease ours. In that way goods are permitted to flow both ways to the advantage of all nations * * *. We give a concession and we get something of equal value in return. In a world dominated by quota systems, export controls, and blocked currencies, this policy has stood out as one of the few sane methods of promoting good will and good business internationally."

Samuel Grafton (New York Post), January 24, 1947:

"There remains, for spreading the American idea, the field of trade, which offers a perhaps more realistic approach to the problem than do some of the more obvious and superficial attacks * * *. These pacts are the very basis of our economic foreign policy, and it should be obvious that if interested groups are allowed to cut in at the policy level (instead of merely at the information-supplying level, as at present) there will be fewer tariff reductions, fewer pacts, less reciprocity, and less trade."

Harold Hutcheson (Foreign Policy Bulletin), February 7, 1947: "Republican opposition to a further downward revision of the tariff poses several questions with respect to the future position of the United States * * *. The most obvious fact is that, as the largest creditor nation, this country must eventually develop an excess of imports over exports; otherwise another era of defaults will set in. Moreover, our failure to increase imports can only mean that our exports will decline * * * By revising downward the more protective duties in the American tariff, the Hull trade-agreement program contributed substantially to increase American foreign trade before the war. Should this trade policy be rejected now, the other 16 trading nations to be represented at Geneva in April will have no alternative but to give up the proposed International Trade Organization."

Gould Lincoln (Washington Star), November 14, 1946:

"The Republicans in Congress will make a mess of things if they seek to increase tariff barriers as they did after the First World War and if they undertake to scuttle the country's national defense as a measure of economy. But there is no compelling reason for them to make fools of themselves."

Ralph McGill (Atlanta Constitution), February 24, 1947:

"The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act * * * was a turning point in world history. Not only did it rob the American people, to protect a few, but it depressed the whole world and made recovery * * * utterly impossible. It especially robbed the American farmer and housewife. It robs them yet. And there are those who would rob them again by demanding high protective tariffs

*

Lowell Mellett (Washington Star), January 11, 1947:

"The basis of President Truman's hopes for a better and safer world

lies in the reciprocal trade agreements associated with the name of Cordell Hull, and in the new International Trade Organization. This policy is already coming under attack in the new Congress. Something no more enlightened than the disastrous Hawley-Smoot thinking is beginning to show itself in the Republican ranks * **"'

Raymond Moley (Washington Star), February 6, 1947:

"Our real interest, despite discouragements, is to do what we can to promote world trade. For only through world well-being can we escape foreign jealousy and suspicion."

Barnet Nover (Washington Post), February 15, 1947:

"At Geneva, this April, 18 nations are scheduled to meet to draw up the charter for an international trade organization as well as to carry on negotiations for the reduction of tariffs, the removal of other trade barriers and the elimination of discriminatory practices.

"The long-range importance of that conference can hardly be exaggerated. The efforts made by many nations in the prewar era, the United States, included to lift themselves up economically by their own bootstraps, ended in world disaster. A throw-back to the trade practices of the past is certain to produce no less evil consequences."

John Owens (Baltimore Sun), February 6, 1947:

"All with open eyes were able to see in the twenties and the thirties the calamitous destruction of political cooperation in world affairs that resulted when nation after nation placed deadly restrictions on its own economic compartment **

Sylvia F. Porter (New York Post), February 17, 1947:

"The United States is the world's greatest creditor, producer, and seller of goods. We need foreign markets for our products. We want to be paid for what we sell. We also don't want to continue lending abroad indefinitely.

"By selective reduction of our tariff barriers we will allow other countries to sell more goods here. That will give them the dollars to buy our goods and honor loans.

"By bargaining tariff reductions, we encourage trade, increase our markets, and promote world stability.

"These are the purposes of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, renewed in 1945 and due to expire in June 1948. These are the aims of the Geneva parley." Thomas L. Stokes (Washington News), February 8, 1947:

"The reciprocal trade program is not something philosophical and theoretical. It is a bread-and-meat-and-jobs matter. Under it, representatives of our State Department sit down with representatives of other nations to negotiate for reducing tariffs and removing trade barriers. Only a healthy world can provide jobs and bread and meat, and trade is the bloodstream of a healthy world." Alexander Uhl (PM), February 7, 1947;

"In the face of the dread depression of the 1930's that grew out of the utterly mad * * * policy of trying to sell to the world without buying from it, we again have the same song and dance of the tariff. While the State Department, looking ahead, seeks to provide outlets for our inevitable surpluses, there are men working harder and harder to tie its hands. Is the building of new tariff walls and the stagnation of world trade the road to American strength and security?" Charles Van Devander and William O. Player, Jr. (New York Post), November 13, 1946:

"The real rub is whether or not the United States will recognize the necessity for economic as well as political cooperation. This country's status as the dominant economic force in the world is recognized everywhere except in the United States * * *. The fear of competition by foreign merchandise is deep-seated in America, but somehow it must be overcome before we can hope to sell large quantities of goods to the world on any sort of long-term, self-sustaining basis * * * ""

Gladstone Williams (Atlanta Constitution), February 3, 1947:

"Because of the devastation of war, the rest of the world will be clamoring for everything America can produce for some years to come * * *. But if we provoke them into retaliatory measures, thus shutting off exchange of goods on all sides, we make it impossible for them to pay their debts and to do a profitable business with us. It is something Congress should ponder carefully before going back to the old method of tariff making."

OPINION OF RADIO COMMENTATORS

Cecil Brown (MBS), January 16, 1947:

16* * * American prosperity needs an overseas market, and it is quite obvious that a country which can't sell some of what it has in the United States will not be able to buy from us. And if other countries cannot buy from us, then in a few years from now, when more is being produced in the United States than we can consume, it will mean either we need those foreign markets to keep our workers on the job or else some workers will be out of a job. So the extension of the reciprocal trade treaties depends on what happens in this session of Congress."

Erwin Canham (ABC), Janaury 9, 1947:

"Of course no sane American wants to let down barriers to the point where low living standards abroad will drag down American standards. But it is equally recognized that world trade, the freest possible interchange of goods, is essential to world stability, political as well as economic

Elmer Davis (ABC), February 4, 1947:

"Now, nobody can promise with certainty that more liberal world trade relations will bring about international peace and security, for there are too many other factors involved in that; what can be said with certainty, for it's based on the experience of the early 1930's, is that a choking up of international trade will mean hardship and impoverishment in many nations, which is likely to make them resort to drastic political remedies in both domestic and foreign affairs. The Republican leaders on the Hill know this and are doing their best to prevent it, but it remains to be seen how well they can hold their followers in line Richard Eaton (MBS), February 25, 1947:

(* * * The President reaffirmed his faith in the reciprocal trade plan initiated by Cordell Hull in 1934. Then he proposed that an escape clause be inserted in every treaty to be made, which would guarantee protection to domestic producers in case of crisis. Of course, this subject, as I have already said, is a dry one, but it seems to me an example of statesmanship, solving very clearly a problem of any serious opposition to the question of reciprocal trade agreements * * * ""

Leif Eid (NBC), January 27, 1947:

"There's something very funny in a sour sort of way about the men who are ripping into the State Department's protective tariff-cutting reciprocal trade program. Practically all of them are men who go around shouting for free enterprise to the high heavens It's slightly inconsistent to shout for free enterprise in one breath and in the next to call for the government interference of a high tariff."

* * *

Cedric Foster, (MBS), February 4, 1947:

66* * * Every Congressman, irrespective of party, should realize that the most dangerous kind of isolationism is the economic kind represented by tariff walls and other trade barriers. Many agricultural and many industrial producers who formerly favored prohibitive tariffs are now realizing that by destroying the foreign markets, increasing the cost of living here, they do more harm than good *. The only effective protection that the American worker has against foreign competition is not a tariff barrier against foreign goods but efficient production at home and a decent standard of living abroad."

* *

Earl Godwin (ABC), February 25, 1947:

"President Truman issued the order to make doubly sure that American interests will be properly safeguarded. This is surely a Presidential power exercised in the direction of common sense. There is certainly room for one and all in this universe, and Mr. Truman's rules and regulations promulgated today are exactly along the line that the good Cordell Hull envisaged a dozen or more years ago."

Joseph Harsch, (CBS), February 4, 1947:

"The reciprocal trade agreement program is the center is the corner stone in the economic part of that (bipartisan foreign) policy. Unless it is continued there can't be a successful world trade conference next month, and without a successful world trade conference, the whole structure of the world bank and fund and the British loan will break down * *

Gabriel Heatter (MBS), February 26, 1947:

"You don't get rid of war by high-sounding proclamations and blueprints, you get rid of war by building a healthy world, free and open, and where trade between all the countries is always raising the standards of living everywhere. You get rid of war by getting rid of poverty and want; and you can't do that behind high tariff walls

* *

[ocr errors]

William Hillman (MBS), February 4, 1947:

66* * * We must make a genuine economic contribution to back up our political contribution and not go back to the old ancient tariff barriers

*

H. V. Kaltenborn (NBC), February 2, 1947: "The protectionist old guard ** * is determined to fight a last-ditch battle for the outmoded idea that a creditor country like ours should bar imports by high tariffs. We tried that after the last war, only to learn that other countries can answer back by raising their tariffs and the result is to kill world trade by tariff walls that pave the way first for depression and then for war. For that's exactly what happened At the Geneva Conference * the

* *

1723

United States and 18 other nations will try to complete the preparatory work on an international trade charter. advance in true economic peace.' The work to be done will mark an important Raymond Swing (ABC), February 9, 1947:

66* * *

[ocr errors]

our cost of living goes down and the whole nation is the richer for it. If foreign countries can sell us some of their goods more cheaply, and one-protected industries then can find some other products to make that the richer nation is able to buy. True, there must be adjustment and change, but on the balance the nation is better off, not poorer. The injured the Nation, should not shrink from lowering tariffs even if some interests temporarily suffer." That is why Congress, serving

David Wills (ABC), February 13, 1947:

"It's really quite remarkable that so many countries have already agreed in principle to our plan of banning import quotas through an ITO. are pretty obvious. It increases our export trade Benefits to us

* * *

(The following statement was submitted by Elizabeth G. Rohr, executive secretary, National Association of Consumers:)

STATEMENT BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONSUMERS ON RECIPROCAL TRADE AGREEMENTS, SUBMITTED TO THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE

In recent months, renewed attacks have been made upon the Nation's reciprocal trade program. ference in Geneva, Switzerland, attempts are being made to emasculate the ReciproEven in advance of the decisions of the International Trade Concal Trade Act and thus place the United States once more on the road to high protectionism. Familiar business interests and equally familiar arguments appear on the scene. of protection are pleading for high tariffs "to protect against cheap foreign comIn brief, many of those industries that have grown up in the shelter petition,' " "to protect American living standards," "to protect the American market" against foreign intrusion, and to "equalize the cost of production" here and abroad.

American consumers have heard these siren voices before-and it is for this reason that we submit this testimony to your committee on behalf of the National Association of Consumers. We realize (1) that the tariffs, quotas, exchange controls, and other barriers to trade which featured the interwar period were but a means of economic warfare that left all nations poorer, however favorably they might effect particular protected interests. debacle of the thirties. Secondly, we realize that the United States has nothing to lose in leading the way to lowered trade barriers and higher living standards. We want no repetition of the trade We have a great deal to gain. Let us be explicit in indicating how reciprocal-trade program benefits the consumers.

As the committee on exports to the Conference on World Economic Cooperation well put it, "Trade, meaning both imports and exports, makes possible higher living standards for the nations that engage in it. of trade between countries on different levels of economic welfare as well as of trade between countries on nearly the same level. Both sides gain. This is true economic productivity, just as do better machines, and makes possible higher real incomes for producers generally.' * * * trade increases

The pur

One could add that, higher real incomes for consumers also result. pose of trade is not that of building a large and impressive export balance. Exports must be paid for by imports in the long run. These imports "of cheap foreign

goods" (of which some American industries complain) represent no net decrease in jobs here. They merely reflect the fact that we are exchanging the products in which we have the greatest comparative efficiency for those in which another country has greatest comparative efficiency. We develop in this way a degree of international specialization.

If an American industry cannot stand up in international competition due to its own inefficiency or any other factor which will permit foreigners to under-sell us in the field, it should not be artificially supported. to the fields in which we can compete, remaining well aware that other countries cannot long sell to us unless a corresponding volume of goods is bought from us. Let us turn our energies In a world hungry for American exports, we are in a position where we can take leadership in lowering trade barriers and fostering general prosperity. The

opportunity has been provided in the Reciprocal Trade Act of 1945. Any amendment to that act which would serve to tie the hands of negotiators or slow the road to freer trade would be opposed by American consumers. In our machinery and equipment industries we have greatly expanded capacities. We need foreign markets. Foreign countries need our goods for reconstruction and development. But we cannot pay for our exports unless we allow their products to enter.

As James Reston, diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times, has put it: "The United States * * * cannot make customers out of paupers unless it agrees to let them work and sell in return. It cannot demand to export and refuse to import. It cannot lead the world successfully as the greatest creditor country if it retains its old debtor mentality. It cannot end military warfare unless it ends economic warfare. It cannot control the new ideas of an atomic age with the tired and shut minds of the Smoot-Hawley age. And it cannot bring the world together unless it can bring the Republicans and Democrats together on a liberal foreign policy."

Business groups have

In past years, consumers have not been articulate. emerged at hearings and have tended to accent their own particular interests. The general feeling was that consumers should take without comment whatever the economic system offered them. If this meant paying exorbitantly for sugar, clothing, or glassware, there was apparently only the consolation that some producers in America were profiting. These profits were made at the expense of the consumer.

Today the situation has changed. Consumers have organized. They are aware, to an increasing extent, of the economic situation with which they are confronted. And the Nation at large has awakened (slowly to be sure) to the fact that consumer purchasing power is important to prosperity. If consumers are forced to spend more of their income for tariff-protected goods, they cannot buy so much of other commodities and thus other industries suffer. Consumers have no shame in buying goods from abroad, if they are advantageous purchases. By making the best bargain, each buyer increases his real income.

Consumers want an expanding American economy and an expanding world economy. They want no crippling amendments to the Reciprocal Trade Act which will reduce their buying power and take us back to the false economics of the Hawley-Smoot era.

FARMERS EDUCATIONAL AND COOPERATIVE UNION OF AMERICA, Washington 3, D. C., May 14, 1947. Chairman HAROLD KNUTSON,

House Ways and Means Committee, Washington, D. C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN KNUTSON: Due to some mix-up in the handling of my request for time to be heard in the course of the just concluded hearings on reciprocal trade agreements, the National Farmers Union's position was not stated in the course of those hearings. Accordingly, I herewith ask that the attached statement of our views be inserted in the record of the hearings. We should appreciate it very much if our position could be so included.

Sincerely,

RUSSELL SMITH, Legislative Secretary.

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL SMITH, LEGISLATIVE SECRETARY, NATIONAL FARMERS UNION, TO THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE, IN ITS CONSIDERATION OF RECIPROCAL TRADE AGREEMENTS AND THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE ORGANIZATION, MAY 14, 1947

The world position of the United States is at once powerful and vulnerable. The obvious fact of its power is apt, however, to obscure the equally real fact of its vulnerability.

Nearly everyone, whether expert or not, is aware of the fact that the United States is the only country of any importance that is prosperous, the only country with gold stocks so tremendous as to be virtually unusable, the only country that has enough economic fat to be able to live well and at the same time export large quantities of goods, the only country able to maintain a vast military establishment without impairing seriously its civilian levels of living.

But not everyone is aware of the other side of the coin. In the very dominance of the United States lies its weakness. In the end, our enormous productive capacity can only be consumed fully if we sell abroad. It is wholly true that among our countrymen there are many who remain ill-nourished, ill-housed, and ill-fed, just as when President Roosevelt coined the phrase more than a decade ago.

« AnteriorContinuar »