The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-06-29

Washington - The history of the Hawley- -Smoot Tariff Act for the last two years is Q succession of trade losses, first in the United States and later throughout the world. It's passage marked the be- ginning of reprisais by other coun-- tries, followed by the exodus of many American plants to foreign soil, and finally exentuated In world wide trade war, which Is re- garded as one of the chief causes of the depression and it's contin- uation.
 The following review of two years of the Hawley -Smoot act Is from the St Louis Post -Dispatchs.
 yesterday we celebrated the sec ond birthday of the Hawiey- Shoot tariff, It was Q melancholy anni- yersary. The business index of the New York Times. which stood at 94 two years ago, has dropped to b5. Ten million people are unemploy- ed. our total imports in the first quarter of 1e30 were valued at $893, 3,000, ,000. In the first quarter Of this year they had fallen to $397.- 900, 900. The decline in exports was even more pronounced, from $1.- 129, ,00O, 900 in 1880 to $459.000,- 900 in 1892. The index of imports fell from 92 to 41; of exports from 90 to 41. Exports of food dropped from $148,000,000 to $68,0O0.000; of manufactured goods from $57b,- 000,000 to $173.000.000; of auto mobiles from $97,500,000 to $23.. 500.000. Our foreign trade Is now well below the level where 1t stood 20 years ago, before the World War.
 "Since the enactment of the flaw ley-Smoot law, there has been no reduction of tariffs anywhere in the world. But some 70 other nations and their colonies have boosted their rates in retaliation. This list includes Germany, France, Italy. Spain. Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and the other Latin American Powers. and even China and little Samoa.
 "Our neighbor, and our major customer, Canada. has been driven to increased protection. and our second largest market, England, has been close dto us because we drove her in desperation to aban- don her time-honored policy of free trade. Elsewhere, imports have been restricted by a variety of new devices; quotas which limit the ad- mission of specific goods to a de- finite total by volume or value, lic- ense systems which require our ex- porters to obtain separate author izaiton for each shipment of goods which they send to the countries concerned, foreign exchange con- trols which likewise check the flow of trade.
 More than 0 score of nations have resorted to one or another of these measures. Ours Is the du- bious honor of having. taken the lead in 0 movement which promis- es to culminate in the virtual pro- hibition of trade between the coun- tries of the world.
 "At the same time, we have de- liberately procured the repatriation of important areas of American in- dustry. our manufacturers have in- vested more than 900 in more than 1000 branch plants in other countries. A hundred NSw branches have been established in Canada since the enactment of the Hawley- -Smoot bill, and major AHeTlChH lnuubtTIeb aTO BULL HI. grating to England to escape the effects of the British tariff. The full minations of the protectionists against this trend do not alter the fact that we, ourselves are respon- sible for 1t. It would not have oc- cured had we not started the tar if war.
 "The apostles of high protection, conveniently forgetting their tradi- tional insistence upon the insepara- bility of tariffs and pdosperity, now argue that the Hawley- -Smoot act Is in no way responsible for the slump. "As serious as our plight is, 1t is not one-half so serious as 1t would have been under any policy save that of protection" declared Senator Dickinson in his keynote speech before the republican na- tional convention. "Where dozens of factories are now idle. scores would have been closed; where | thousands work only on part t-time now, they would have been without any work at alI."
 This, of course. is as far from the truth as one could well get. The tariff act of 1880. by inducing widespread retaliation, mortally in-