Evening star., 1933-07-29
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

LONDON. July 70 NAN.A).-The
ordeal Of Secretary Hull at the Eco
nomic Conference furnished the most
important net gain America brings home
from the conference For he emerges
q gentleman. He gave Europe . con-
spicuous example Of the best type OF
American politician. Now that he re-
turns rather forlorn from what he hoped
would be q gallant quest. the story may
be told
Mr.. Hull led q delegation aboard ship
in New York May 81 definitely commit
ted to three major policies. The COM
mitment came from President Roosevelt
who handed the agenda Of the confer
ence to Mr.. Hull and the delegation
with his unqualified approval. The pro-
gram. briefly, provided for international
stabilization Of currencies. break down
of tariff barriers and increase Of inter-
national commodity prices.
Expert advisers to the delegation were
drafted from various departments of the
Washington Government, especially
equipped to advise the delegation upon
the three important features of the cor
ference program. When they were three
days out from land the wireless brought
news that President Roosevelt had de-
cided not to ask Congress for authority
to complete the tariff arrangements that
might be made by the conference.
First Blow Of Series.
Mr.. Hull Is philosophical free
trader who believes in revenue tariffs
but he is not Q free trade crank. He
hoped above everything to be able tc
reduce American tariff barriers to the
level established by Mckinley, Garfield
and Mills q generation ago. To find
that tariff negotiations were on the
American program was the first blow
Of series which rained upon him un-
ceasingly from then on.
President Roosevelt could not be
blamed for abandoning the tariff fea-
ture. He had to tighten ship. and
tariff went overheard for the larger
good.
When the American delegation landed
pounced upon Mr. Hull and demanded
that he discuss war debts. Obviously
he had no authority to do so, but his
refusal, however courteous. gave him
bad entrance. His very courtesy. his
striving to be explicit, left an impress
sion of weakness upon Europe. which
was used to q rather noisy. hard-boiled
staggering attitude in certain Ameri-
can statesmen.
Question Of Stabilisation.
The dollar began declining when the
American delegation came down the
gang plank. Sterilization being one OF
the Objectives Of the conference, 1t was
assumed that the first thing would be
to stop the decline of the dollar Under
Mr. Hull's leadership the attitude of
the delegation certainly gave color to
the belief that 1t would stand In the
conference for sterilization.
Suddenly President Roosevelt took the
whole matter Of sterilization away from
the delegation and put negotiations in
the hands OF the Treasury officials of
the United States, and 1t was an
nounced. rather informally and some
what by rumoR from the Treasury De-
partment that there would be no sta :
bilization. The dollar continued to sag
Other members of the delegation
notably former Gov Cox, vice chair
man-clung to Q belief that some sort
Of temporary stabilization could be ef-
fected. Three times backing Mr.. Cox
Mr.. Hull appealed to the White House
for some authority to effect temporary
stabtlization while the conference was
in session.
But the American situation-the rise
OF commodity prices In America under
the shadow Of the recovery act-made
this impossible from the Presidents
viewpoint. So the second aim on the
agenda which Mr.. Roosevelt had hand
ed to Mr.. Hull was erased.
Then appeared the Moley episode