The Cordova daily times. [volume] (Cordova, Alaska) 1914-1947, 1918-06-07
RESTRICTION OF IMPORTS
NOT TO Be AN EMBARGO

WASHINGTON, June 1.-THE
/ United States has been put on lean
import diet. About 5000 commodi-
| ties, as important as paper, glass and
glassware, fish, meats, furniture and
| stone, and as unessential as fans,
| perfumery, dice, truffles, edible birds
nests and a few hundred other edible
substances, which nobody has had the
hardihOod to classify, are coming to
war days. Lists of restricted imports,
issued by the war trade board with
the advice of the Shipping Board, are
in force and the embargo" is on
One immediate result of the work
ing Of the lists will be a few lost
motions in shipping. These lists make
it necessary for the business world,
here and elsewhere, 10 readjust itself
| 70 new conditions. That readjGst-
ment VIII inevitably be reflected fo-
d time in shipping. There will lie
sort of between hay and grass"
| season, the same kid CT period that
many stores have when changing
over from one season to another.
There is no doubt, however, that
whatever the disarrangement may be,
it will be comparatively unimpOrt-
ant In the end, the United States
will be able to employ hundreds of
thousands of dead weight tons more
economically than at present and sup
ply the soldiers and the allies in
France with less trouble.
Not an Embargo
The new plan of control isn't an
embargo at all in the sense that the
famous measure of Jefferson's time.
was 1t isn't so sweeping and so ex-
asperating that, like the Americans
of a hundred years ago, people are
spelling the word backwards and call
ing it derisively the "O-Grab-Me" act
1t hasn't sealed our ports. 1t was
not designed to put the country on a
basis of self-efficiency. The restricted
lists now in force are not nearly so
broad in scope as the English prohi, /
bition lists, which have cut down the
imports more than fifty per cent. i
England has stripped to the waist"
one of the shipping board officials
has put it, "and we are simply TAX .
ing off our coat"
More restrictions are in sight, how
ever, and they will tend to make our
condition more like EngIand's than it |
is now. There have been many
guesses as to what will be included. In
some cases, business men who have
conferred with the government off
Gals in Washington on trade ques-'
tons have assumed that restrictions
were certain to follow AS a matter
of fact there have been conferences
which have been called to clear up
disputed or doubtful points, and other
conferences have been part of a gen.
eral plan of action. Hardly anybody
not engaged in the actual preparation
of the restricted lists, or the admin
istratiOn of them, knows how the
next one looks today Nobody at all,
not even the heads of the bureaus
concerned, can say what the fist will
look like in the final form
Behind the restricted lists of inn
board, acting i'll conjunction with
many other boards and departments.
While one division of the shipping
board has been building ships and
buying and otherwise obtaining them, |
another division has been studying |
tonnage in it's relation to commodi-
ties. The first, intermediate and final
efforts of all divisions have been to
get more ships and shipping. At the
same time there has been an effort
not to disturb the existing interna-
tional balances.
The great difference between thel
absolute embargo of Jefferson's time
and the present restricted lists is due
not only to changed industrial con-
ditions but to the presence of hun
dreds of thousands of American troops
in France and our obligations to
them and to our co-belligerents. There
is a constant stream of ships to Eng
land and France. Once over there