The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-06-08
BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS
Soripns-Howsrd Foreign Editor


Soripns-Howerd Foreign Editor
TORONTO. June Am aroused
Canada today threatens to turn the
Hawley- Smoot tariff into the
biggest boomerang in the economic
history Of the United States.
Significant events are taking
place on this side of the border by
way Of reply to the Grundy block
ade against Canadian producers.
Unless the situation is sensed soon
by Washington, and corrected, the
whole future of the American masses
may be altered grayely.
Should we have to suppress the
0 or 10 per cent Of cur total produc-
ton which now is sold abroad, Pres
ident Herbert Hoover said at Bos-
ton, eve might survive as a nation,
though on lover living standards
and wages"
That possibility now confronts the
American nation.
Left no Alternative
Unable to get past retaliatory
tariff walls raised against our goods
by foreign powers American indus
tries are building branch factories
abroad, employing foreign labor and
using these branches as bases for
their export trade.
Foreign reaction against our tar
If policy, they say, is leaving them
no alternative.
Convinced that the Hawley-Smoot
act threatened the economic indie
pendence of the Dominion, the
strongly nationalistic government of
Premier Richard Bedford Bennett,
one of the shrewdest political war
horses this country ever he pro-
duced, now is fighting back and
asking no quarter.
Proflting by Americas blunder,
Canada aims at nothing less than
making herself perhaps the great
est manufacturing and exporting
nation in the world-greater than
England and greater than the
United States.
Extending Open Invitation
Canada is extending an open in
vitation to American industry to
establish plants on this side Of the
line, and her inducements are many
One, location in a country that is
closer both to Europe and the newly
awakened Asia by several hundred
miles than is the United States, and
with only a slight disadvantage in
reaching the twenty republics OF
Latin America.
Two, cheap and plentiful hydro
electric power, as indispensable to
industry today as was coal yester-
day-power over which the govern
ment keeps strict control.
Three, all unsurpassed base for
foreign trade, with the benefits OF
preferential rates with the other
members of the British empire and
special trade relations with twenty
three other foreign nations.
-Four, her own expanding domestic
market.
Coming Over in FIocks
Approximately half Of our total
export trade, normally amounting
to some SIS 900 100000 year, is with
Canada and the rest of the empire.
This, together with our trade with
the other nations with which Can
ada is on more friendly trading
terms than we are, makes up the
bulk of our foreign market.
For these and other reasons,
American industry has not been
slow to accept Canada's invitation.
Branch factories are coming over
in focks. No less than lot impor-
tant concerns established branches
on this side of the boundary in
1880. more than doubling the 1929
exodus an6 quadrupling the num-
Der that migrated in 1928.
And the rush continues.
Offering Trade Home
While parent factories in Cleve-
land, Detroit, Akron. Pittsburgh,
Toledo. Buffalo and elsewhere back
home are working part time, with
radically reduced personnel, branch
plants over here are turning out
identically the same goods for sale
not only to Canadians, but for eX-
port to the four corners of the globe.
This, it should be stated. is not the
fault of American industry. Most
American industrialistS warned the
tariff makers that something OF the
sort was bound to happen.
Nor is Canada to blame. She
merely is profiting by Americas mis-
take. The United States govern
ment having made the United
States untenable as a base for q
lusty. growing export business, she
is simply offering this stricken trade
q home
Has Recoiled on. u. s.
The Hawley-Smoot tariff already
has recoiled upon the United States.
Warranted to speed the growth Of
American industry. its tendency now
Is to cause it TO stagnate at home
and expand abroad. Touted as q
boon to American labor, it now Is
providing jobs for foreigners while
100000 unemployed beat the pave
ments at home
Heralded as the royal road to
higher wages and higher standards
of living, its trend today is to lower
both by increasing the army of the
idle.
Americas foreign trade, which
President Hoover calls our pros
perity balance" Enthusiastically is
migrating to other lands
Tuesday: How a single American
industry lost $4,000 jobs TO Canada