The midland journal., 1945-04-20
News ~
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Released by Western Newspaper Uniol
TARIFF CUT OPPOSED
AS BUSINESS HANDCUFFS
By PAUL MALLON

=
request for power to cut the tariff
another so per cent (making rs per
cent in all from the 1884 rates) fell
| on hard congressional soil. IA
Some-not alone the Republicans
say 1t represents practically free
trade and nowhere near the actual
difference between the cost of pro-
duction at home and abroad-which
is what good tariff rate should be.
know at least two highly placed
Democratic senators who are dis
| pleased.
Labor is beginning to grumble
also. AFL's Matthew VOL came
oHt against it I'm a statement
which is supposed to be fore
runner Of labor opposition.
There certainly will be a fight
and the outcome is by no sound
means foreteIIable yet.
The President called for 1t as one
Of 'the kit of tools'' he needs to
| handle postwar trade, but the Re-
| publicans are calling it monkey
wrench. Without doubt it contrasts
strangely with some Of the other
| tools he asked for, particularly the
proposed balloonish world bank,
which is to lend money for the de-
| velopment of industry abroad.
AIDED COMPETITORS
Under our own foreign loan and
rehabilitation program we gave
money, for one example, to finance
the building Of a steel plant in Bra
zil. For another, during the AAA
days when we restricted cotton pro-
duction, the cotton growing industry
in Brazil and other countries grew
rspidly. ea
This competition is such that
at recent congressional hear .
ing there was testimony that cot j
ton can be produced in Brazil,
Mexico and other South Amer
lean countries cheaper than in
the United States. For others,
we have put money into Mexico
to finance mineral industries
which can compete with us, in
deed, the New Deal favors in
| dustrialization of the world. -
Now the New Deal argument, used
by Mr.. Roosevelt, is the familiar
one heard often from his new COM,
merce secretary Wallace, that as we
| are creditor country and all the
world owes us (indeed, far more
than it can ever repay the tariff
theory must be abandoned, at least
| rs per cent abandoned.
INCREASE FOREIGN DEBT
But the tools in the kit he has
asked for would make us even more
| of a creditor nation. In short his
whole policy is a spend-lend pro-
gram for foreign trade, the giving
of money to the bank to enable them
to build more competing industries
and the giving of money to the sta
bilization fund to support fictitious
value for prospective foreign buying
nations, and cutting the tariff gen.
orally so everything can get into
this country. We cannot avoid wind
ing up, out of such a proposition,
with every nation owing us even
more than it does now.
Would anyone then think the era
sure of the final Is per cent of the
tariff would help our creditor posi-
ton? Or would we not then realize
our creditor danger had merely been
doubled? Certainly the more we
spend and lend the more they owe
us-and the money comes from our
| people. ~
There are SO many problems to
foreign trade that the vastness of
the subject is beyond human grasp,
at least beyond mine. But, in any
case, the new. world we are coming
into will involve wholly different
problems than those of oldtime tar
| iff walls.
Think, for instance, of Chinese la
Dor costs and the Russians govern
ment production system which can
| value anything at any price. Both
| of these were not involved seriously
before, but they may become more
important than trade with Britain
and Canada (the two nations the
President mentioned).
It seemed to me Mr.. Roosevelt
rather answered himself with one
basic observation in his message to
congress. He said:
eve cannot hope to maintain
exports at levels necessary to
furnish the additional markets
we need for agriculture and in
dustry, income for the farmer
and jobs fer labor, unless we
are willing to take payments in
imports"
Well, why not? This rather di-
rectly suggests that what we should
be doing is taking imports for ex-.
ports. That seems to imply an en-
tirely different ideal.
WAR END DRAWS NEAR
When General Eisenhower said the
Nazi armies had been whipped, he
did not mean exterminated. Two
days after his statement, they were
L q