Evening star., 1936-05-04
HULL SETS COURSE
AGAINST ISOLATION
World Cooperation Held
Essential to Achieve Eco
nomic Recovery.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.


New Deal was then getting ready
to embark upon.
But in three years many things
can happen to prove more conclu-
siyely than the friends of international
co-operation were able to do at that
meeting how dangerous can become
the policies of "self-containment.
= Within the last few days Secretary
Hull has delivered a notable speech.
He re-defines the fundamentals OF
a sensible policy of world cooperation
.end he gives in urIniStakable IAN
guaee the answer to Secretary Wal
lace who, early in 1884, outlined
the alternatives of national policy
with a pamphlet entitled, America
Must Choose"
Mr.. Hull reveals that he has CHOSEN.
He has taken his position as what
American policy should be. The ad-
dres would be of far-reaching and
transcerdent Importance if one could
know that President Roosevelt ap-
proves of it and intends to pursue
.aegressively the course plainly indi-
Gated by the speech of his Secretary
of State.
International Trade.
"As time goes on" says MIR. Hull,
sit becomes increasingly clear that
no ration can achieve full measure
of stable economic recovery so long
as international trade remains in
the state of collapse into which
it has been plunged during the years
of the depression"
In that sentence, Mr.. Hull has ex-
pressed the philosopy of millions OF
persons who have opposed various
New Deal policies because the latter
looked toward a Self-containment that
only meant more and more subsidies
to farmers, subsidies to workers, big
ger relief rolls, and finally Govern
ment socialization of business as an
inevitable result of trying to curtall
Rrpduction and live in the realm OF
economic scarcity instead Of abund-
ance. This not only has come to
mean higher and higher prices for
consumers without increased wages
but has implied an enlargement Of
governmental powers with coercion
virtually an essential to the success
Of a planned economy.
The alternative which the other
school of thought has been insisting
upon is a removal Of restrictions
in production, in fact its encourage
inert, and the stimulus of trade and
intercourse between nations so as
TO absorb our surplus. Somewhere
in the world there is use for all the
food America can produce and for
all its manufactured products. And
in America as consequence OF
greater interchange of goods and
services there is buying power and
Investing power to import certain
commodities or to put the surplus
of American capital to work in other
countries and thus provide an equi-
hbrium of exchange.
Economic Nationalism.
Secretary Hull's condemnation OF
"self-containment" is unequivocal and
fortnight. He says:
The whole postwar period has been
characterized by an ever-increaSing
drift toward economical nationalism
which has expressed itself in constant
growth of barriers to international
trade This drift has become enor-
mously intensified during the last
six years, many countries have never
ceased to deplore it. Under its impact,
the international economic structure of
the world has been all but shattered,
and individual nations have sought
economic improvement more and more
by means of purely domestic measures,
on the basis of a greater degree of
self-cortainment than was ever before
consciously attempted.
Such a movement toward national
economic self-containment is incom-
patible with the establishment of
satisfactory prosperity"
Now had any anti-New Dealer
said the foregoing, he would have
been accused of going back to
Hoover" and wanting to embrace
all the iniquities and inequities Of
the Old Deal. Secretary Hull is
known to feel that self-containment
since 1888 has been a stop-gap policy
on the part of the United States
and it explains his continued presence
in a cabinet that has been engaged
in carrying out self-containment pol
tcies directed by the President himself.
Outspoken on Policies.
But Mr.. Hull speaks out now and
shows the restiveress which he and
others of his way of thinking must
feel toward a continuation of various
policies loosely called the New Deal
but really involving Government sub
sidy with money drained from tax
payers in the form of indirect as
well as direct taxes and huge borrow
ngs against future generations.
The Secretary sees vast unemploy-
ment, an impairment of investments
and a breakdown of the whole eco
nomic system unless distress growing
out of a contraction of world trade is
cured. He says it breeds social in
stability" and opers the way "for
the demagogue and the agitator,
foments internal strife, and fequently
leads to the supplanting of orderly
government by tyrannical dictator
ships"
This correspondent has written
many articles critical Of the New
Deal philosophy ard has often re-
ceived letters asking what doctrine
he would approve. Secretary Hulls
speech is comprehensive answer.
Were its doctrines observed by the
party now in power and were a man
of Cordell Hull's great ability and
determination permitted to carry them
out, there would not be an army of
unemployed and an unbalanced
budget. For MIR. Hull is a realist, a
liberal, practical statesman, and
probably the outstanding man in
the Democratic administration in his
understanding Of the complexities
of our natioral and International
economic system.
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