ment in the United States. That, in strict logic, is not the case. If, instead of seeking both quantity and quality in our employment, we were to content ourselves with quantity alone, we could doubtless have it with little or no foreign trade. If we were to accept the necessary controls, it is conceivable that we could keep everybody steadily at work in a closed economy. But it would require a drastic readjustment for us to do so; it would reduce the output of our labor; it would impair the well-being of our people.

We want large exports. An important part of our agricultural activity has long been directed toward sales abroad. And now our heavy, massproduction industries are also geared to a level of output which exceeds the normal, peace-time demands of the domestic market. The maintenance of the type of plant, technology, labor force, and management that they require is essential to the preservation of our economic health and even of our national security. It will be easier for us to maintain both the quantity and the quality of our employment, it will be easier for us to insure our security, if we keep our labor at work, insofar as possible, in the industries where it is most effectively employed. And this means that we must sell substantial quantities of our output abroad.

We want large imports. The war has made great inroads on our natural resources; we have become and will increasingly become dependent upon foreign supplies of basic materials. The quantity and variety of our demand for consumers'

they are low. Private transactions are carried on at private risk; if they are displeasing to individuals, they need not involve the state. Public transactions must be effected by governments; if they give rise to dissatisfaction, they are all too likely to become the subject of diplomatic representations. International relations, in all conscience, are difficult enough without creating a situation in which any purchase and any sale may assume the character of an international incident.

It must be recognized, of course, that the postwar transition, even for the United States, may temporarily require some hang-over of public trade. Lend-lease must be wound up. Relief must be provided. Trade must be opened with the occupied areas. We must be assured continued access to certain materials that are still in critically short supply. But our policy for the long run is clear. The foreign trade of this country-almost all of it-will be in private hands. The persisting exceptions will be few; they will be confined almost entirely to transactions that are essential to our military security.

As you know, the United States has requested the nations that have maintained war-time purchasing missions in this country to limit their operations to commodities required for civilian relief and rehabilitation, to confine them to the normal channels of trade, to make their purchases in accordance with commercial considerations, and to liquidate their operations at the earliest possible moment. In general, the responses to this request

trolled economies to trade with one another on a basis of equal treatment and mutual advantage. And this is what we seek.

Our third principle is that international trade should be multilateral rather than bilateral. Particular transactions, of course, are always bilateral; one seller deals with one buyer. But under multilateralism the pattern of trade in general is many-sided. Sellers are not compelled to confine their sales to buyers who will deliver them equivalent values in other goods. Buyers are not required to find sellers who will accept payment in goods that the buyers have produced. Traders sell where they please, exchanging goods for money, and buy where they please, exchanging money for goods. This arrangement is the rule in the domestic market; it has had its counterpart in international trade. Thus, in the years before the war, we bought from Brazil twice what we sold her and from Malaya ten times as much as we sold her while, at the same time, we sold the River Plate countries twice and the United Kingdom three times as much as we bought from them. Bilateralism, by contrast, is akin to barter. Under this system, you may sell for money, but you cannot use your money to buy where you please. Your customer insists that you must buy from him if he is to buy from you. Imports are directly tied to exports and each country must balance its accounts, not only with the world as a whole, but separately with every other country with which it deals.

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