Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1942-12-17

WHAT gong 10 save us is the ire
mendous foreign trade we're going
to do after the war. Devastated
Europe and Asia will gobble up every
bit of surplus our farms, mines, for
ests and factories produce and beg
for more. Instead of an unemploy-
ment problem, we're going to have,
under the wise guidance of our in
ternationalists, gratifying state of
permanent manpower shortage
A debt of 200 billions will be in
consequential. We shall be so pros
porous that we won't even 60 into
the wallet to pay the S billions of
annual interest. Well merely toss
it nonchalantly out of the small
change pocket.
/ can hardly wait. Everything's
going to be so nice.
OF course, we'll have to do some
thing positive to earn all these bless
ings. We can't merely sit back and
wait for them to happen.
First and foremost, we shall lower
trade barriers. Tariffs must come
down.
All nations must be given equal
access to raw materials. That's an
other point.
These are merely two of the pro-
posed changes. There are many more.
But these will do as starter Be-
sides, the editor doesn't like it when
I'm too long-winded.
But now slight question occurs
to mind: What are the foreign coun-
tries going to use for money? They'll
all be flatter, financially, than a pan
cake.
Shall we lend them the money?
If we do, can we expect ever to get
it back? Past experience with Euro
pean nations has not given us much
reason to trust unreservedly either
their honesty or their good inten-
tons. If we don't get it back, won't
it come out of the pocket of the al
ready over-burdened American tax
payer?
Or, are we going to embark on a
pump-priming program for the whole
world? If so, what reason is there
for thinking that spending ourselves
into prosperity will be successful on
a worldwide basis when it proved a
flop in the U. S. A?
If we're to rely on orthodox meth
DDS of financing, then we have a
means of determining just how much
foreign business we're likely to do.
They'll buy from us as much as
they can pay for. And they can pay
only to the extent that we take their
exports in exchange.
What it comes to is that we our
selves will determine how much
they'll buy. If we take a lot from
them, it'll provide them with the
means of buying a lot from us. If
we take only little, they'll be able
to buy only little.
Before the war, our foreign trade
amounted to 10 per cent of our total.
That was the measure of our import
needs. Most of it consisted of the
things we do not produce ourselves
rubber, tin, silk, tea, rice, rare woods,
industrial diamonds, coffee, nitrates,
to name some of the major items.
We bought as much as we needed.
We didn't skimp on a single one.
What reason is there for thinking that
we're going to need such a vastly
greater amount after the war?
But our internationalists do not
plan that we shall limit our purchases
only to the things we need. We're
going to be sports and buy a lot of
things we don't need. This is going
to be brought about through a lower
ing of tariffs.
We're going to take wheat from
Canada and Argentina, even if we
have an unwieldly surplus ourselves;
we're going to take wool and mutton
from Australia, copper from Chill,
oil from Iraq and Iran, copra from
the Orient, hides from India and
South America, beef from the PAM
pas, competitive manufactures from
Britain and Germany.
Of course, all this will drive our
own prices into the basement. But
what the heck! Look at the pur-
chasing power we're creating for for
eign countries!
1t will probably lower our own
living standard to the level of pre-
war Europe's. But it may increase
the income of every Chinaman "a few
cents day" and provide a quart of
milk daily for everybody in the
world.
To this stubborn realist, it looks
as if our internationalists reason along
much the same lines as the Hebrew