The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1930-06-12
GRUNDY TARIFF
TRIUMPH WILL
RUIN US. TRADE
Threats of RepriSaI Hang
Over Senator's Heads
on Eve of Vote.
EXPORTS ARE HIT HARD
Friday, June 13, 1880, May
Become Black Date on
American Calendar.
BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS
Scripps- Howard Foreign Editor

WASHINGTON, June ITO
morrow, Friday, June Is, may 60
down in history as a sinister date il
the foreign relations of the United
States, a turning point in this coun-
try's commercial, industrial and eco
nomic expansion.
Gravely apprehensive, all the
great trading nations of the world
will focus their attention on Capitol
Hill as the senate casts its epoch
making vote on the Hawley- Smoot
tariff, against which more thar
thirty foreign powers have protest
ed strongly as destructive to inter
national commerce.
Already Americas foreign trade,
said by President Hoover to be vital
TO the nations prosperity, has
slumped 81 per cent this year, as
cribed chiefly to foreign reprisals
against our tariff policy. Fridays
vote, therefore, is awaited anxiously
~ our best customers abroad, be-
cause it is largely upon the result of
that vote that they will fix their
own commercial relations with us.
Warnings Are Sounded
From the four points of the COM
pass have come warnings that re-
taliatory tariffs or other barriers
will be imposed against American
products by the affected nations.
Department of commerce figures
shows that up to April l foreigners
had bought approximately $500, 000,-
600 less from us than during the
corresponding period of last year,
and data just made public reveals
that the slump continues. During
April another $100,000,000 decline
was recorded.
Meantime, key industries, en-
ploying millions Of American work
ers, have been hit hard. Automo-
bile sales abroad have slowed alarm
lngly, output has dropped 81 per
cent. steel orders at home and
abroad have dwindled, and car
loadings fallen off some Is per cent
below last years figures for this
time.
If the tariff bill passes, econo-
mistS assert, this unfavorable trend
will be accentuated. Foreign ma
tions, which thus far have con-
tented themselves with warnings,
or merely the beginning of re-
prisals, will set to work seriously
preparing for their counter-strikes.
Britain Will RetaIiate
Britain, who buys about 16 per
cent of all her imports from the
United States, amounting to more
than $800,000,000 a year, is at the
tariff crossroads, according to for
mer Premier Lloyd George.
Free trade or protection is again
a burning issue, and observers de-
clare that passage of the prohib-
tive Hawley- Smoot rates will add
to the impetus to lay heavy duties
on foreign products and set up i'm
perial preference between Britain
and her dominions. Americas trade
with England inevitably would
suffer.
Canada, 68 per cent Of whose for
eign purchases are from this side of
the border, and who last year ouSted
the mother country from first place
among our customers, already has
countered with a higher tariff pol
icy. which policy will be extended,
she frankly announces, if our tariff
wall is raised.
France, likewise, has boosted her
duties on American products and
the American ambassador at Paris,
Walter Edge. has had notice served
on him that passage of the Hawley-
SHOOT measure not only will mean
further reprisals of that nature, but
that a coalition of European ma
tionS will spring up to combat
American trade abroad.
Offers Voice Protest
Spain. Italy. Austria. Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Holland. Norway,
Sweden. Rumania, Portugal. Den
mark. Belgium, Germany, Ireland,
Australia, South Africa, Japan and
a dozen other countries have not
ceased to protest for the past year
or more.
In Europe, Latin America, and
elsewhere, tentative plans have been
made to curtail trade with the
United States if the tariff becomes
law. Fridays vote, therefore, is ex-
pected to check or to crystalize the
various movements imperiling the
industrial and commercial expan-
sion of this country.