Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-31
TARIFF SHIFT MAY HURT
u. S. FOREIGN RELATIONS
Congress May Make Changes That Will
Undo Effects of Hoover's Goodwill
Tour and Also Agitate Canada.

probably inevitable. tariff revision can
only mean that both Canada and Latin
America will turn to Europe and seek
by reciprocal tariff ravors to reimburse
themselves for the losses resulting from
our tariff legislation.
Unpopularity Stands Against Us.
And just as certainly the political
will follow the economic. Resentment
at injuries resulting from our domestic
| legislation will not merely provoke
too easy the task of our economic rivals
: in Latin America in exploiting our I'M
popularity to their own commercial and
political advantage. Whatever Mr..
Hoover won for us in South America, he
is almost certain to see lost in Congress.
Good will trips and protective tariffs
are, at least beyond certain point. If
reconciliable.
Actually, of course, the whole tariff
issue raises again the familiar fact
that the United States is Still-in
| thought, in political mentality--in the
transition stage. We have become in
reality a nation whose exports already
rival those of Britain and in whose
I exports manufactures are steadily rising
! to a greater and greater proportionate
value. And in the same fashion we are
becoming daily more and more the
worlds banker, the great lending power
of the planet.
But while this revolution has taken
place, no parallel revolution has oc-
CURED in political thought. Congress,
called upon to legislate, acts with mind
! exclusively occupied with the problem
| of the number of votes to be produced
in regions where the vote crop is most
vital. Foreign markets may be lost and
foreign friendships imperiled, but the
men who make the laws are, as yet,
totally unfamiliar with the whole vast
and novel character Of American re-
lationS abroad.
Beyond much debate the work of the
extra session to meet next month will
give Europe its first effective opportu-
nifty to get back at us since the World
War. 1t will provide invaluable oppor-
tunities to score in the competition in
trade, which is already becoming in
tense. For Britain in particular it will
afford an opportunity 70 reopen a
battle almost lost in the Canadian
market. And no one who is even
sentiment in Canada today hesitateS to
forecast that the reprisals will be far
reaching. And for Europe in general,
South American resentment will supply
the same chance.
A Congress still dominated by the
conceptions of the Mckinley admins
tration and limited by the outlook Of
the United States of 1899 is now going
to legiSlate for a Hoover administration
and nation become the most consider
able world power and economically and
financially on the planet This Con-
gresS is going to raise the tariff in those
directions best calculated to raise votes
and without regard to the consequences
to the foreign relations and foreign in
terestS of the United States.
In Europe, of course, tariff legislation
is detail in foreign policy. The same
hands which shape policy make and
modify duties. Friendly nations ex-
change favorable schedules, political
alliance inSureS an economic associ-
alton. Even old enemies signalize their
present, If temporary, truces by eco
nomic adjustments. After Locarno,
France and Germany promptly framed
the great steel cartel and the smaller
potash arrangement. And, conversely
nations which quarrel, even when they
do not fight with arms, fight with
tariffs, as Germany and Poland are
struggling today.
To the European mind the tariff is as
UlOLc-d QucStlOLl VI
foreign policy as of domestic concern
Hostile tariffs and friendly relations are
rarely discoverable.
AS consequence of our isolation we
have thought of tariff exclusively in
terms of domestic politics, in terms of
votes to be won at home and without
thought of markets and friendships to
be lost abroad. Now, for the first time
since We became in real sense world
power, We are undertaking tariff re-
vision. Perhaps-inevitably, too-we
are undertaking it precisely in the same
spirit and fashion as in the long past.
But unless every sign and all the ac-
cumulated experience of the past prove
mistaken, We are destined to discover
that in the United States of 1929 the
question of domestic tariff is one which
involves every conceivable issue of for
eign relations, political quite as much
as economic.
tCopyright, 1929