July 29:
The world depression which has brought so much unemployment to some European countries has not left the other side of the Atlantic alone. Free Trade apologists in Great Britain shave not been slow to-retort to their critics by asserting that the un employment problem in the United States of America is ax bad as that with which Great Britain is faced. And now that the tariff wall has been raised by Washington to a height un-Precedented in history it is not surprising that much emphasis should be laid on the criticism which American business terests are alleged to have brought against the tariff. Pres-Ident Hoover has attempted to mott some of the objections by the assertion that he will use executive power to modify rates if subsequent events should prove that such a course is desirable. It is. noticeable that-strong opposition to the tariff has come from the manufacturing interests which fear a heavy drop in their exporting trade and, at the same time, an enormous increase in working costs because of the heaviness with which duties have been imposed on raw materials. Mr. Henry Ford, for example has declared that the new Act involves increased taxes on 830 articles which go to the manufacture of his principal product. There is also the fear—which action in Spain and developments in France appears in some measure to justify—that the tariff may lead to reprisals and, in the present state of overproduction and restricted markets, any outcome of that kind' would be particularly disturbing.
The difficulty of arriving at a correct estimate of the unemployment problem in America will not be appreciated without consideration of the psychology ical factors involved. The Commerce Department has recently declared that figures, examined on the basis of a census of one-fourth of the population, give a total for the whole nation of something like 2,500,000, Thi is considered by some observers tobe far below the actual figure. The suggestion is that in.large cities the workers who come from abroad and have not yet acquired full American citizen ship are unwilling to admit unemployment because of their apprehension that the admission might be used to their detri. ment. The New York "Time: recently pointed out that, whereas the departmental returns gave unemployed figure for seven cities of New York State as only 61,350, in a population of 2,000,- 000, one district of New York alone—deseribed as a fair sample—had separately reported an unemployment rate of 4.7 per cent. Trade Union circles put the national figure at about 8,600,000, while even 4,000,000 is cited by more pessimistic authorities.
In these circumstances hopes of a revival of world trade are being eagerly sought, There hag not been much encouragement forthcoming, although, during the past few days, English industrialists have ' been heard to murmur pleasant words like "signs of a revival," "the turn of the tide." Nowhere would these words be more wel come than in the United States. There, however, much will depend on the results of the current year's harvests. If. the crops are large the farmer, on whose account the tariff ' has raised, may be in a serious jon.and this will. react gravely on the whole position. The recent heavy liquidation in Wall Street is said to have been due in the main to a realization that the depression in industry
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.