The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-12-13

figure where they got the idea that he was a. great believer in cartels.
 Nobody had taken the trouble to ask him what his views were on this subject. But from all sorts of peculiar places there began to ap- pear the charge that Clayton, the big cotton man, was, also big car- tel man.
 Senator James Murray of Mon- tana took cognizance of the noise and gave as his reason for voting against Clayton's nomination the belief that Clayton would favor car- telization.
 Asked directly about his views on this issue, Clayton declares f1atly that he is opposed to cartels and all other forms of international agree ments which in any way restrict production, set up quotas, tax prices or limit distribution, and that he has always been opposed to such controls.
 BELIEVES IN COMPETITION
 Having been in the cotton bus mess all his life, Clayton points out that this business has always been highly competitive throughout the world, and 1t is his belief that the industry should be kept that way. The only restrictions that have been laced on cotton production, he says with smile, have been govern ment restrictions, and he has not favored them. Internationally cot- ton dealers themselves never have had any kind of a private cartel, their worldwide trade being con- ducted on the most highly competi- tive, free enterprise basis.
 His inference is that if he had favored cartlization to the degree he has now gratuitously been cred ited-or discredited-he would have favored and forced through some, kind of international agreement to limit production or distribution on cotton.
 Up to the time he resigned his po- sition as Assistant Secretary of Commerce to take the Surplus Prop erty disposal job last July, Clayton reresented Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones on an nter-departmen- tai committee of government agen- cieS keeping an eye on European cartel operations in wartime.
 This committee was organized and run by the very secret Office of Strategic Services. Its deliberations and reortS are therefore not a mat ter of public record, but govern ment officials familiar with it's work agree that Clayton as well as all the other members of the committee, viewed world cartels with hostility. THINKS THERE WILL BE
 A TIN CARTEL
 Clayton admits frankly that when the war is over there are going to be some cartels in operation. He mentions specifically the probabil- ity of tin cartel because the sup ply of tin in the earth is limited and is largely controlled by China, Malaga and Bolivia.
 Clayton believes that for mater ialS which can be grown or which are found in the earths surface in abundance, there is no reason or ex- cuse for trying to limit production OA 'CAANNCASAA bJ hA0CA AAbO4OA414 agreement.
 Speaking before the Harvard Bus mess School at Harvard's tercente- nary in 1886, Clayton declared that Agreements between competitors to curtail production or fix prices, with or without government sanc- tion, are to be condemned on econ- omic grounds. What the world needs is more production at lower prices, bringing even high standards of liv- ing. Faulty distribution, due to clog ged trade channels, arising from government tinkering throughout the world, and not over production is the thing that plaques us"
 He has consistently been a great packer of Secretary Hull'S reciprocal trade program because "it took the tariff out of politics" and ended the effort to divide the world into water-tight compartments, restrict ing the ow of goods and services from one to another"