More Aftermath

The Undersecretary of the Treasury, like anyone else, may be expected to take a summer vacation. Fortnight ago when Ogden Livingston Mills slipped off on the Bremen for Europe, the U. S. Press paid scant attention. Before he could land in France, however, alert newshawks in Paris were cabling dispatches to their papers that French officials believed Undersecretary Mills was coming on a special mission for President Hoover, that he was to investigate European reactions to the new Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, and also to close negotiations on the problem of France's double taxation of U. S. subsidiaries doing business there.

Mystery. When Mr. Mills did arrive in Paris, he carefully explained he was going on a holiday yachting trip in the Mediterranean. Nevertheless his presence in France generated an atmosphere of intense expectancy. Was his story of the usual diplomatic kind that conceals a secret mission of high international import? He insisted he would see no French officials --and then he waited over 24 hours on the chance of conferring with Premier Andre Tardieu. A mysterious appointment was made for 5 p.m. The French Premier waited two hours for Mr. Mills to arrive, only to learn that he had already departed for Monte Carlo. The Mills household was amazed, for Mr. Mills had been waiting, it said, to hear from M. Tardieu! Said a U. S. Embassy official: "There are many queer incidents around Mr. Mills's visit and we are unable to explain this engagement with M. Tardieu."

No Mystery. Whatever Mr. Mills's mission, France permitted no mystery to envelop her feeling about the new U. S. tariff. Neither did Italy. Neither did England. At a political meeting in Paris, Raymond Poincare, four times Premier and a party colleague of present Premier Tardieu, flayed the "blind economy and selfish nationalism" of the U. S. He warned: "There is a crisis in the friendship of the two nations which if it is not remedied promptly will grow worse." At Rome the Italian Government upped the duty on automobiles, prime U. S. export, by 167% (see p. 24). In Washington Secretary of Commerce Lamont declared that this was not tariff retaliation but an honest effort by Italy to protect its own motor industry. In London, the bankers of Britain, traditionally free-traders, joined in a great manifesto advocating a tariff wall around the British Empire (see p. 21).

"Flex!" One Senator after another arose in the closing hours of the last session to put through resolutions ordering the Tariff Commission to make cost production investigations in the U. S. and abroad for a large variety of commodities. The Senators' purpose, in some instances sarcastic and pessimistic, in others hopeful, was to see if the new tariff (and the President) would flex to correct "inequalities" as advertised.

Even before the President had reorganized the Tariff Commission to accord with the new law, the Senate had dumped at its door requests for investigating rates on: cement, furniture, farm implements, sugar, ultramarine blue, umbrellas, pig iron, lace, parasols, shoe laces, wood flour, organs, pipes, ash trays, cigaret holders, snake skins for shoes, felt hats, wool floor coverings, boots & shoes, hides, pigskin, window glass, straw hats, electric bells, wire fencing and netting, maple sugar and syrup, white and norway pine, spruce.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.