The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-12-11

 $5, ,OO0, 000,OOO worth of goods abroad in 1929. For the last few years this has fallen off to a mere
 trickle. If great part of that five billions in foreign trade could be
 restored, literally millions could be taken off relief rolls. It is worth trying for. <
 But the war and the war debts proved one thing. Trade between
 countries is not a orle-way propos.-' tion. You can't sell abroad unless you are willing to receive about the same amount of foreign goods. If you try, the debt piles up un- til you can't collect it. We found out about that.
 So the trick is to try to sell goods to countries which can send back goods which we don't make. | Only in that way can foreign goods fail to throw Americans out of | work.
 ALL TRY TO PRODUCE There may never again be as
 much foreign trade as there used to be. Every country in the world has worked frantica1ly ever since the war to learn to produce what
 it needs without buying abroad. One of our most recent foreign sales was complete steel mill to China. So much less steel China
 need import.
 Britain's best export during the last year was fine textile machin-
 cry. So much less cloth. England
 will be able to sell in future. There
 is much reason. to believe that for
 eign trade will diminish. But there is still a great deal.
 And while the United States hid behind the high wall of the Grun- dy tariff, other nations were mak- ing arrangements with one another
 to see what they could profitably
 exchange = leaving the United
 States out of the picture.
 SHIFT TARIFF POWERS Now it is getting in the picture
 again. Congress has turned over
 the power to adjust tariff rates | (within limits) to the president
 and his advisers. That is a surren- der of power, but tariff making has become so complex nowadays that
 it is really a job for scientist. Put yourself in a congressmar's s place. You represent a sugar-b beet territory. Could you vote for a low CT sugar tariff, even if you thought 1t best for the whole country, and
 then go home and face your beet growers?
 Tariff reductions always hurt somebody. The trick is to make the cuts that hurt the fewest and help the most. That is what Secretary of State Cordell Hull and his tariff revisers are trying to do now.
 "But look here, dad, protested John, Jr. There's certainly some things we have to import, and which we. don't raise here at all. Coffee, for instance.
 Practically all of it comes from Brazil. We don't raise any. Ger tainly we ought to be able to make an agreement with them to take automobiles and cloth and air. planes from us when we take
 their coffee. There's bound to be some foreign trade!"
 Well. they're awfully slow about getting the agreements
 made" complained Pa Jones.
 T don't know" John, Jr, ob- jected. Remember the tariff act
 that permitted these agreements
 to lower tariffs was signed only
 Cuba is finished, and there are eight others under way, I under stand.
 ''The state department thinks IS will be finished this year. It's awfully complex work.
 For instance, you know that in
 the Cuban agreement they cut their tariffs on automobiles and lard, and we cut ours on sugar and winter vegetables. It seems to me that it's all in whether more farm