Evening star., 1940-02-20
would rejoice as much as I would
to be released from this unbear-
able situation

able situation.
The trade-agreements program has
contributed to a general increase In
the foreign trade of the United
States. Studies made by non-parti-
san agencies presented evidence at
the hearings before the Committee
on Ways and Means to the effect
that the program has done a good
job. Without going into too many
details, it has been proven that ex-
| port trade with agreement countries
has increased much more than trade
with non-agreement countries. At
tempts were made before the COM
mittee to discount these conclusions
by hand-picked statistics prepared
to show an unfavorable picture, by
those opposing the act. The evidence
of this greater increase in trade with
the agreement countries could not
be weakened by enemies Of the pro-
gram. The overall results with
agreement countries in comparison
with non-agreement countries pre-
sents the true picture of the results.
OF course, special circumstances have
been important in affecting indi-
vidual countries or particular
products so that the volume of trade
as a whole is the best test of the
effectiveness of agreements.
In the trade agreements thus far
concluded with 81 countries, the
foreign governments concerned have
lowered their trade barriers on a
wide range of American farm and
factory products. The concessions
obtained by the United States in
clude duty reductions, enlarged
quotas and other mitigations of
restrictive measures, as well as the
binding of existing duties or free
entry, on thousands of items which
enter into our export trade
Taking the years 1884 and 1885 as
substantially pre-agreement period,
exports from the United States
averaged $4,000, 100000. During the
two-year period 1887 and 1888, with
II agreements in effect for most Of
the time, exports averaged $3,200,-
100000. While friends of the pro-
gram do not claim that this entire
trade increase was due to the ad-
vantages for American exports OBJ
tanned by the United States in trade
agreements, it is significant that
during the period 1878 exports
from the United States to countries
with which reciprocal trade agree
ments were in operation averaged
61.2 per cent greater than during
the 1934-5 period. Over the same
period our exports to non-trade-
agreement countries averaged only
37.9 per cent greater.
Foreign Markets Vital.
There was little difference between
the rate of increase in imports from
the agreement and non-agreement
countries for the respective compari-
son. Surely this shows that trade
agreements have not caused q flood
of imports.
The central fact about trade agree
ments which we must remember Is
that we cannot hope to maintain a
satisfactory economic situation in
the United States without an ade-
quate volume of foreign trade. This
is true of both exports and imports.
1t is fundamental.
Our national economic machine
has long been geared to the produc-
ton Of number of important COM
modities in quantities which exceed
our domestic requirements. SUBJ
stantial portions of our output of
cotton, tobacco, corn-hog products,
wheat, fruit, refined copper, certain
petroleum products, machinery Of
various types, iron and steel products
and many others must be marketed
abroad, If these branches of produce
ton are to prosper Once they are
deprived Of adequate foreign out
let's, the people involved in these
branches Of production would find
their purchasing power impaired.
AS result, they would buy less of
other goods produced in this country
and a shrinkage of purchasing power
would be the result. \
The loss Of foreign markets for our
exportable surpluses leads to a
shrinkage of our domestic market as
well. This effect is accentuated by
the reduced volume of business done,
in consequence Of the shrinkage of