Evening star., 1936-03-01
RECOVERY SOUGHT.
IN NTRADE TREATIES
Eeveling Tariff Barriers Ex.
.apected to Produce
~;:-:.. ~: 100000 Jobs.
BY BLAIR MOODY.

This is the first OF a series of foe 3;
aTeicaes on the efforts OF Secretary
Hull to break do,pn trade barriers
and promote exports and imports
thfou6h reciprocal trade agree
ments with foreign nations. Mr..
MOODY points out hoU recovery in
foreign trade can help solue' Amer
-tca's unemployment problem and
Improve the position OF the budget.
("Y YHAT is the solution of to-
NA/ days great American para
wv dox-a Nation rising rap
Idly from depression, with
business and agricultural income fair
to booming everywhere-yet a Fed
eral budget unbalanced by billions,
impending higher taxes or imitation,
and 100000 unemployed men and
women (more or less) still tossing in
O whirlpool of distorted economies?
Business says Government can solve
the problem by balancing the Federal
budget and Government says business
can solve 1t by putting the jobless
back to work.
But neither has told the other clear
~ how to do the job it urges-nor
which is the cart and which is the
horse!
The fact is there is little prospect
of balancing the Federal budget until
the unemployed are absorbed in pri-
vate business so that the back-break-
ing burden of dole or work relief can
be lifted from Uncle Sam. Barring,
of course, outrageously higher taxes,
which no one wants)
- Cant Spend Forever"
I'VE can't go on spending this way
forever" is the cry Of the conserva-
tlves.
"We can't stop spending" the lib
erals reply. "if by stopping we put
millions of Americans face to face
with starvation"
What, then, is the answer?
Obviously jobs in private business
that do not now exist.
But how can such jobs, by the mil
lions, be created?
There can be no panacea or ma
tional bonanza in an economy so vast,
complicated and delicate as ours. The
tides of credit imitation, national near
sightedness, depression. disrupted ex-
changes. false standards and emer-
gency "bootstrap economics" that have
swept the world since the Great War
cannot be pushed back without leav-
ing their mark.
But there is one group quietly at
work within the Government which
believes it has, from the long-pull
standpoint, the mucf,-sought answer.
1t is not spectacular, nor does it
promise results overnight It is build
ing on theories in exact variance with
the ballyhooed emergency policies Of
some other New Deal agencies.
Seven Treaties in Effect.
This group is composed of depart
mental career men, working under
Secretary of State Hull. to tear down
trade barriers and promote exports
and imports by reciprocal, most-fa-
vored-nation trade agreements with
foreign nations. Seven such treaties
are already in effect.
Secretary Hull's program springs
from the fact that Americas foreign
trade in 1929 reached a peak of nearly
$4,000, 100000 and that, in 1892, it
had fallen below $4,000, 100000.
In 1885, it had risen to $4,000, ,000,-
Oc0 roughly, but still was substantially
below half of the peak.
II some mogul of finance should
announce new industry waiting for
the Nation, which would pour $7,000,-
600, ,00o-or even $4,000 ,o00, ,00O-into
the channels of trade each year-the
effect would be sensational.
Hull declares that $1,000 900 900
worth of business abroad. is as much
worth going after as it would be
domestically.
Reversal Of Policy Urged.
But to get it, he contends, the
United States must reverse its policy
Of shutting out foreign goods-for
purchases abroad are the only means
foreigns nations have of paying for
American goods, except shipment of
gold and so-called invisible items"
like travel, which are comparatively
tnfiniteStimal. -4
So long as the United States keeps
q sky-high tariff wall around any pro.
duct whose industry is well enough
organized to maintain lobbist in
Washington, advocates Of Hull's policy
argue, there is little hope of saving
exporters not only from retaliatory
tariffs abroad, but from quotas limit
ing the amount of American goods
that may be imported, ruinously high
fees and charges that more than Offset
any export subsidy, and, in some
cases, actual embargoes, which shut
out American goods entirely.
This yankee trading" policy of
President Roosevelt and Secretary
Hull aims to batter down tariff bar
riers by intelligent swapping away"
Of existing regulations. It is being
done by the Department of State
under authority granted by Congress.
But what would recovery of our
SO 1000, 600, 900 Of foreign trade, If at
tanned, do for the unemployed and
the Federal budget?
100000 Jobs Are Seen.
According to Government and trade
estimates, somewhere between 4,00o,-
600 and 100000 jobs would be re-
stored by revival of foreign trade.
That Is more jobs than have been
created by the entire w. p. A., the
agency now responsible for the "un.
balance" Of the Federal budget.
Not by achieving some nebulous and
mythical goal, then, but merely by
recovering markets which we once
had but lost, it would appear to be
possible to end Federal relief and
balance the budget.
This would beget the long-sought
feeling Of stability prayed for by the
business and industrial world and stop
the threat Of initiation.
With reduced relief expenditures
and business stimulated to full re-
covery, the present tax structure,