The English agreement was the keystone to his arch. If he failed to obtain an agreement with England his programme had failed. If he obtained one the rest would be easy, The British Dominions—Australia, South Africa and New Zealand—would fall into line, The South American countries which look to England as much as and at times more than they do to the United States would follow. The Scandinavian countries which revolve in the orbit of the British pound—Denmark and Norway—would hasten to do the same. Following the logic of his reasoning the hardest nuts to crack of all—Japan, Italy ang Germany—would then be tackled/ In the fast moving sweep of his vision the Secretaries feet may on occasions appear to loose their contact with solid ground, The spirit is willing (and soars) but the flesh is weak (and remains much as it was), Mr, Hull is no Icarus who crashes as he attempts his flight, but his machine belongs to the Bleriot period rather than the Sigorsy or Handley Page. Vision is less important than a good machine or instrument and the Trade Agreements Act which Mr. Hull has to operate cannot carry him as far as he wishes. Its radius is limited, But though imperfect it was the best that could be obtained, Under the old system of tariff-making every special interest brought pressure to bear on some Congressman or other to obtain the shelter of a higo, tant wall. The Congressman, thinking of his own districts and the factories in it full of voters, saw that those factories had the protected market they desired. He appreciated the position of a fellow Congressmen with factories producing a different product and fellow feeling made him kind when his support was asked. Every Congressman looked after some sectional interest and the interest of the whole was forgotten. The sum of special interests does not equal the general interest, The Trade Agreements Act took the tariff making power away from Congress and gave it to the executive, But the Executive was limited. Tarif reductions could not be more than 50 per cent; and they must not be granted as a gift, they must be given in exchange for a rough equivalent.
The present Secretary of State is a low tariff man..He believed in low tariffs in the far off days before the Smoot-Hawley Act was passed when he cried in the wilderness for a reduction of American tariffs for the benefit of the American consumer and io provide a measure of competition against industries which were, despite anti-trust laws, gradually eliminating competition among themselves, But the 1929 crash changed the picture. The increased tariffs did not lead to rising prices. On the contrary prices fell catastrophically. Factory workers trudging the streets or reduced to selling apples on the curbs naturally turned against the idea of lowering tariffs to an increased flow of foreign goods. There were not enough buyers to absorb all the goods Americans could make. They went further and blamed the foreigner for putting up tariffs which kept American goods out of foreign markets, The outlook of the farmer as he looked at his barns filled with unsold corn was the same,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.