Evening star., 1935-05-19

If this is true Of q man-to-man
purchase amounting to q few dollars,
how much more is it true Of business
transactions running into the millions
It would be strong firm which could
stand the loss If 1t ordered So ,000, 900
worth of cutlery from Sheffield and
found. by the time it arrived, that the
cost would be s5,000,00o. American
traders can. seldom afford to take the
risk of buying abroad, since they
must sell at home in dollars. and
therefore must estimate the cost in
dollars-and since the value of the
dollar in relation to any foreign cur
rency may change overnight.
OF course, the same thing Is true Of
foreign purchases in the United
States. It can fairly be said, In fact,
that until currencies are stabilized in
their relation to each other there will
be no international trade on large
scale except in goods which must be
had by the purchasing nation-as
England, for example, must have
wheat-or In goods which can be pro-
duced abroad so cheaply as compared
to home costs that there is virtually
no danger of fuctuation so great that
the margin of profit will be wiped
out-a good example of this being the
cotton piece goods being imported
from Japan. Such trade, which is
the absolute minimum, will never
bring a return of prosperity.
All this has nothing to do with
return to the gold standard, although
I have yet to hear an argument
against that standard which is based
on anything except emotion. There
may be better standard, but what
ever the base eventually chosen 1t
must be as nearly as possible i'm
Notwithstanding which cannot be
changed in accord with the whim of
some particular nation. Heaven
knows that international trade would
always be at a minimum If the poll
tician standard were substituted for
the gold standard.
Leader Needed for Sterilization.
with currency in the hope of getting
favorable trade balance at the ex-
pense of the other fellow, just so long
will our international trade, both ex-
port and import, languish. We could
lead the world in bringing about sta
bilization, in pushing forward an in
ternational currency conference.-the
less, of course, the world remains dis
trustful of our good faith since we
destroyed the London Economic Con-
ference by refusing to consider this
very issue.
Take another elementary principle.
You cannot make people buy at q
high price from one shop exactly the
same goods which can be bought from
another shop at lower price. The
same things is true internationally.
Just so long as our present masters
insist on maintaining at home an
artificial price level substantially
above the world price, we shall be
unable to sell any large part of our
surplus goods abroad-only those, in
fact, which happen to be unprocur-
able elsewhere at any price.
Unfortunately we have no such
goods, and it is almost true to say
that there are none such anywhere,
except authentic works of art. The
British once thought they could make
the world pay their price for rubber.
The price skyrocketed; then it crashed
because the Dutch, after all, had a
lot of rubber-and the rubber industry
has been sick ever since.
U. S. Cotton Trade Tagging.
It seems that our own Department
of Agriculture believed American cot
ton to be a necessity to the rest OF
the world, but the artificial American
price set the rest of the world to
raising cotton, just as the artificial
British price set the Firestones to
raising rubber in Liberia. We all
know that the American cotton market
says like a pricked balloon. Not
ought to be clear to any man who Is
willing to give just few minutes
to consideration Of the matter, that
foreign trade cannot long survive the
handicaps Of disorganized currency
and price fixing.
It is so obvious that foreign trade Is
not improving that. am inclined to
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