Evening star., 1939-12-10
Hull Seen Handicapped
by Trade Program
By ODen L. Scott.

Among all Of the potential aspirants
for this Nations presidency, the hardest
luck is Detailing Cordell Hull.
Mr.. Hull probably is the most avail
able. compromise candidate for the
Democratic party nomination in the
event that Mr.. Roosevelt retires and .
deadlock develops between the conserva-
tive and New Deal groups.
But 1t begins to look as though the
Secretary of State has tied his kite to a
very dead horse instead of to a bright
star.
That which looks like dead horse is
this country's program Of what are
known as reciprocal trade agreements.
These agreements are supposed to be
scientific methods of breaking down
tariff barriers so that trade can flow
more freely among the nations OF the
world.
Mr.. Hull has devoted his seven years
in Office to fostering the freer trade idea.
He has consistently defeated his antag-
onists and has for five years been in
possession of the machinery with which
to lower tariffs and to remove some of
the barriers that stand in the way of
world trade. He has negotiated agree
ments with Great Britain and Canada
and France and Belgium and Holland
and other great trading nations. He
now is negotiating an agreement with
Chile and hopes to negotiate with Ar
gentina and Uruguay.
Today, however, 1t begins to look as
though this effort has largely been futile.
A combination of politics and of war
accounts for the futility. Politics enters
through the fact that every new agree
ment signed weakens the prospect that
the reciprocal trade agreement program
can survive. Each agreement results in
some new item being added to the list
of products on which tariff rates are re-
duced. And each reduction in tariff adds
another group opposed to reciprocal
trade agreements. The result is near
certainty that the new Congress will
refuse to extend this program after 1t
expires next June, except in modified
form to permit the Senate to pass on
each agreement before it becomes ef-
fective.
War is besting Mr.. Hull through the
fact that war requirements are causing
the principal trading nations to toss re-
ciprocal trade ideas into the ashcan
British, French and Canadian agree
ments now are all one-way affairs, with
the United States doing all of the agree
ing. Britain, France and Canada are
engaged in a program of restrictions
that are the very opposite of trade free
dom. Those restrictions on imports OF
American goods and upon the exchange
of currencies are copied after the Ger
man and Italian restrictions. Trade, in
stead of being free, is rigidly controlled.
In fact, the British have announced
that they do not intend to make pur-
chases of American products that they
had agreed to make.
But, then, the United States earlier
had violated the spirit Of its own policy
by engaging in the use Of dumping
subsidized exports-in order to sell wheat
and cotton on the world markets In COM
petition with wheat and cotton of other
nations.
All Of this would be less interesting If
1t were not for the position of Mr. Hull.
The Secretary of State is insisting that
the reciprocal trade program is alive and
kicking. To admit otherwise would seri-
ously jeopardize his position as an out
or fha
cratic presidential nomination. But to
push ahead with proposed agreements
with Argentina and Uruguay will only
generate fight in Congress that may
more publicly advertise the breakdown
in this method Of bringing about world
recovery and world peace.
Certainly Secretary Hull will now have
an opportunity to demonstrate his abil-
ity to emerge from tight political spot.
The underlying fact seems to be that
the world trend is irresistibly toward
nationalism in trade. There is every
prospect that the United States will have
to recognize this trend and adapt itself
to 1t despite the resulting difficulties.
Mr.. Hull has correctly and consistently
pointed out that system of controlled
trade can only result in reduced exports
for the United State, inasmuch as this
country has for many years sold abroad
larger volume of goods than has been
purchased abroad for import into the
United States.
Yet Great Britain is accepting the
control principle and is projecting con-
trolled trade program for the postwar
period.
Not only that. Britain is proposing
deliberately to boost the price OF rubber
and tin and other commodities that the
United States must buy, in order that
the British thereby may obtain more
dollars. And Britain is proposing to keep
her pound cheap in relation to the
American dollar so that it will be easier
for Latin American and other countries
to obtain pounds with which to buy
British products.
The result is the sort of trade situa-
ton that Mr.. Hull has characterized as
indefensible when practiced in the pre-
war period by Germany and italy and
Japan.
OF course, If Europes war does speed
up and take on a destructive character,
1t is entirely possible that requirements
abroad will impose a heavy demand upon
American industry and agriculture, with
the result that new trade restrictions
will be forgotten. But existing controls