But with the turn of the year the situation changed, The change first came in agriculture, The farmer after the Supreme Court had overthrown the AAA became conscious of the impact of agricultural imports. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that he had the matter brought more strongly to his attention by critics of the reciprocal tariff programme. Then when business began to decline the voice of the manufacturer joined the swelling chorus. His market in the United States was falling off.
The Administration proposed to curtail it still further by admitting more foreign goods, Both farmer and manufacturer showed a remarkable facility for looking only at the reverse side of the shield, The possibility, or one might even say the demonstrable fact, that increased trade would benefit both farmer and manufacturer in the long run did not occur to either. Or if it did occur the individual farmer and manufacturer felt con-yincer that though his next door neighbour might benefit so that taking industry or farming as a whole benefits could be chalked up on-the credit side of the agreements programme, he individually would be hard hit.
Those who felt they would suffer were exceedingly vocal while very little counter clamour was raised by those who felt they might benefit, In the case of the farmer this was understandable, {or he knew that it he did not get foreign markets found for him by the Administration he would not be allowed to suffer, he would get farm relief of some kind.
Several Disadvantages Negotiations in the Open The first disadvantage of this is that it followed mathematically nothing would be done to correct the initial discrepancy between the height of the American tariff and that of the other country, The second disadvantage, or more properly perhaps, the same disadvantage, looked at in a different way, was that a. 50 per cent. cut still left American tariff rates extremely high: In the tasse of the United Kingdom and the United States, both nations have a large free list; but putting that on one side we find (with a few exceptions on both sides) that the British tariff runs from 33-1/3 per cent. downwards while the American runs from about the same level upwards till the stratospheric height of 85 or 90 per cent. is reached.
This growing opposition made the State Department determined that the long preliminary discussions with England should be brought to an end and the negotiations brought of! into the open, Their views found an echo in London where the National Government facing the growing threat from the dictator powers felt that a closer economic bond with the United States would in some mystical manner give them added strength, A few more deluded or more ignorant of the American scene may have imagined that American ce-operation could be "bought" by an agreement, A very cursory examination of the debates in Congress on foreign policy, would have shawn them their error.
America is firmly isolationist. Con-pressmen returning from the centres
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.