The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-03-08

United States or imported, and
the determination of just which
of our monOpolistic or inefficient
industries we are willing to ex-
pose to real foreign competition.
This problem should be ap-
preached from the point of view
Of longtime national plan
which we are willing to follow for
at least twenty or thirty years,
even if some of our friends get
hurt, and howl continuously to
high heaven.
Throughout the world, protected
industries have been piling up
SURPRISES, and bowling for fur
Their protection and export outlets
in the same breath. In such a
struggle, all can not be winners.
Tariff walls rear higher and
higher; complaints multiply In
the confusion it sounds like
plea for freer trade. 1t is some
thing very different.
What the nations demand in
unison is only more outbound
traffic More inbound traffic they
feel they can not accept. Every
surplus country needs deficit
areas to balance it off; and as the
surplus countries increase, the
deficit areas decrease. Thus by in
exorable logic, say the economic
nationalist, the nations drive
steadily on to economic isolation.
7 HAVE tried to show that such
L conclusion does not inevitably
follow Nor should We conclude,
from the fact that international
trade has declined heavily
throughout the world since 1929,
that it is destined to decline per-
manently. Compared with the de-
veloped parts Of the world, the
relatively undeyeloped parts are
still very large. Among these we
may include vast areas in Africa,
India, China, Russia, South
America and elsewhere.
AIOl COhGAs lllC Ildb1OlLo Jl4c1b VIC
consider well developed are prob
ably nowhere near the limit of
their possible development in civil
lized purchasing power. 1t would
be mere guessWOrk to infer from
the experience of the last few
years that expansion in the world
trade has passed the zenith. 1t
may be that we have seen only
the early stages. Expansion on
sound lines, with trade based on
genuine reciprocity of one sort or
another, may furnish scope for
expanding economic energy indefi-
nitely.
Trade expansion forced at the
point of the gun is, Of course, an
entirely different matter. That
game is never worth the candle.
Certainly, however, opportunity
still exists for the sane and peace
full expansion Of world commerce.
THERE is world trade to be
i had. BY paying the price the
United States can get its share.
What is that price? 1t must buy
abroad as well as sell abroad. 1t
must import as we'll as export.
In it's general form, this PROPOSE
ton eXcites no opposition; but its
particular applications do.
Arrangements to bring in more
goods, so that more may be sent
out, involve pains as well as prof
its, and neither the pains nor
the profits affect all citizens
equally. 1t does not appeal
strongly to an American manu-
facturer to be told that if he will
sacrifice a part of his domestic
market to his foreign competitors,
our farmers will have a better
foreign market. He wants to
know at once if there is not a way
to do the trick without hurting
any one. There is none.
There will be actual pain, from
dislocations in the business struc-
ture, and psychological pain from
dislocations of traditional atti-
tudes, and from denials of the
traditional American opportunity
to rule or misrule ones own bust
ness in ones own way, regardless
OF general consequences, what
ever course we choose.
TOMORROW - Solving Home