Failure to Modify Would Be Economic Murder "Washington, Feb. 23.
Referring to the extension of trade preferences to the Philippines after 1946, Mr. Paul McNutt, American High Commissioner to the Philippine Islands, at a press conference to-day, said that failure to modify the Independence Act would be "economic murder."
The Philippines, Mr. McNutt delelared, should be ready to meet all internal and external problems before obtaining complete independence.
Recently, the repeal of the export tax provisions in the Philippine In-independence Act, as well as other changes designed to help the Philippines economically, was proposed in a Bill introduced in the Senate Senator E. W. Gibson of Vermont.
The measure, inter alia, advocates the extension of the American coastwise laws to the Philippines, would admit, duty free, an excess of sugar over the Tydings-McDufüe quota, and permits the payment of the sugar processing tax to farmers instead of; the Philippine Government. i The Bill also proposes the incorporation in the Independence Act ofi a declaration of policy that the} American Government will be under a moral obligation to refrain from placing further burdens on Philippine exports to the United States.
meanwhile, members of the Joint Preparatory Committee working out ihe Philippine report said that it would be impossible to forward the report to President Roosevelt before Mr. McNutt returns to Manila.— i Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.