Nov. 18.
Unless there has been some eleventh hour hitch, which at this juncture seems impossible, the Anglo-American Trade Agreement will have been signed by the time these lines appear in print, and a long period of exceptionally dificult' negotiations will have been brought to a successful conclusion, The new agreement which is a very extensive one, covering several hundreds of articles of mutual trade, provides for reciprocal reduetion in the British and American tariffs, and may be considered the first step towards the desired objective of gradually reducing the high tariff walls which have been created since the Great War, to a great extent as a result of the growths of an exaggerated nationalism which has operated against that worldwide ce-operation which 1s 30 necessary from many points of view. The first attempt to negotiate such an arrangement resulted in failure, and for some time it appeared as though' the second would meet the same fate, but it speaks well for the determination of the two governments concerned to reach 0 satisfactory conclusion that, despite threats to the smooth progress of the conversations, which occasionally seemed to have reached deadlock, it has been possible to meet each other's point of view, with the result that fan agreement has been reached, That is Important, for it is apparent that, had there been another failure, the difficulties of artanging a third set of negotiations would have been all the greater by reason of past failures, Indeed considerable time might very well have passed before either Government would Ihave considered the moment ripe for such at other endeavour. Great Britain was especially handicapped in the matter because of the Ottawa agreements under which certain preferences were arranged within the Empire, Jand one of the first obstacles to be overcome was the fact that the interests of the Domin-fons and Colonies in Empire trade had to be considered at every step of the way. That had the result that Great Britain was. all times conducting parallel negotiations, tone set with. the United States and the other with the component parts of the Empire which naturally watched developments with no little anxiety.
ut of the many hundred items upon which settlement has been reached are the tariff concessions which Great Britain is giv= jing the United States on lard, ham, apples wheat, lumber and plywood, together with "a cut in the duty on motor cars over 24 horse-power. In return wide concessions were granted by the United States on British manufactured goods includ ing high grade textiles, hardware, leather and leutlery, and while both lists are necessarily incomplete, until further details of the agreement are to hand, it has been stated that there is a more satisfactory balance between the two sets of concessions than would appear from the foregoing very abbreviated lists [One of the main difficulties to be encountered was the arrangement of suitable terms with regard to American agricultural products, which, being in competition with Canadian, meant' that Britain under the Ottawa Agreement could not possibly grant concessions without the consent of that Dominion. That has, however, been adjusted by negotiations between the United States and Canada designed to effect another understanding whereby special consideration will be given by the former to such goods as cattle, fish and dairy products, and the fact that it has been possible to come to some arrangement has greatly facilitated an understanding in this respect. It is suggested that as Great Britain is able to conclude satisfactory arrangements with the other signatories to the Ottawa Agreement it will be possible to extend the scope of the concessions which have already been made, though it is clear that the interests of the Dominions and the Colonies must be of paramount importance to Great Britain in considering what further
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.