Pleasant Thing

Nearest neighbor, biggest customer, least troublesome friend of the U. S. is Canada. Even so, to win Canada a mention on the front page of U. S. papers, a honeymooning princess has to have her jewels stolen in a Canadian hotel or Canada's Prime Minister has to call officially in Washington. Last week both occurred. The $7,500 jewels stolen from Princess Maria of Bourbon-Sicily, bride of Prince Juan of Spain, held press attention until the Rt. Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King actually stood on the White House doormat, ate from the White House dishes, slept in a White House bed. "I thought it would be a pleasant thing," said Mr. King, "to pay a courtesy call upon your President." That was a magnificent understatement. What the new-Canadian Premier assuredly thought would be a "pleasant thing" was to do something that looked virtually impossible, to fulfill a prime promise that got him elected last month (TIME, Oct. 21). That promise was to make a reciprocal trade treaty that would restore U. S.-Canadian trade. In 1929, the last full year that Prime Minister King and his Liberal Party were in power, Canada bought $948.000,000 of U. S. goods and sold the U. S. $503,000,000 of her goods. In 1930 Mr. King was succeeded as Prime Minister by Richard Bedford Bennett, and under his Conservative Administration Canada began to follow the same Depression policy that the U. S. followed under President Hoover: piling up tariffs and trade restrictions to protect her shrinking home markets from imported goods. In 1933. when President Hoover retired. Canada bought only $210,000,000 of U. S. goods, sold only $185,000,000 of goods to the U. S. Not until last month, when Canada's Liberals were returned to power, was Canada in a political position to reverse her policy. In fact it was the first time since the Civil War that the Liberals in Canada and the Democrats in the U. S.-- both historically the parties of free trade and low tariff--were simultaneously in power. Reciprocal treaties, such as the U. S. has made with Cuba, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Sweden and Belgium, have done little to stir U. S. blood. But Canada normally sells nearly half her exports to the U. S., buys more than half her imports from the U. S. She does more trade with the U. S. than the whole of South America, as much as the whole of Asia. In theory, tariff trading between the U. S. and Canada could have magnificent results. Month ago Liberal King sold this theory to his Canadian constituents. From last January until shortly before the Canadian elections, Canada's Conservative Government had been exploring the possibility of tariff trading with Secretary of State Hull. Results were not very promising. The U. S. and Canada are not like Jack Sprat & wife. Commercially they are much more like Jack Sprat and his twin brother Bill: in general, they produce similar products. Neither Canada nor the U. S. can expect the other to take its surplus wheat or copper. When the Canadians asked whether the U. S. would take Canadian fish, potatoes, butter, cattle, the answer was: "Unfortunately, we have enough. But we might take a little lumber and some liquor." Even on Canada's one big export to the U. S., newsprint and wood pulp, there could be no concession because that already comes in duty-free. In return for lumber and liquor Canada was not willing to take any greatly increased amount of manufactured goods from the U. S. Last week the same Canadian experts who had reached this impasse in negotiation a few weeks before returned to Washington with new inspiration and new orders. Three days later Prime Minister King hustled in to see what he could do in person. His hopes for greater success, judging by his campaign utterances, rested simply on the fact that his heart was for trade, whereas his predecessor's mind had been preoccupied with tariff. The new Prime Minister is by no means an Anglophile. His predecessor's Empire Trade Preference Agreements are one of the things that Mr. King means to alter in order to get better terms for Canada, and he is temperamentally far more willing to make trade alliances outside the Empire if they are to Canada's advantage. Day before President Roosevelt returned to Washington from Hyde Park, Prime Minister King arrived to look over the ground. At the station he was greeted by Undersecretary of State Phillips and the President's Naval Aide. Also on hand was the British Ambassador, Sir Ronald Lindsay, anxious to watch the Canadian who London feared might throw over the Empire as a trade ally in favor of the U. S. Off in a White House limousine drove Mr. King to the Canadian Legation, recently vacated by Canadian Minister William Duncan Herridge, brother-in-law of outgoing Prime Minister Bennett. Promptly he set matters right with the Empire by announcing that he had really intended to visit London before Washington but had changed his plans because of the impending British elections (see p. 18). Then he dropped in at the British Embassy and the South African Legation to show that Canada really was not snub- bing the Empire. Next morning the Canadian Prime Minister called on Secretary Hull, but his important interview was reserved for later. That evening the President and Mrs. Roosevelt had at their dinner table the Prime Minister; Secretary Hull; Oscar Douglas Skelton, Canadian Undersecretary of State for External Affairs; Hume Wrong, Canadian Charge d'Affaires;-- Mrs. Wrong and Ministress Ruth Bryan Owen. Afterwards the gentlemen retired to the President's study. What passed there will not be revealed until the reciprocal trade agreement between Canada and the U. S. is published, but the President and the Prime Minister found much in common. Had not Mr. King taken a Ph.D. at the President's alma mater. Harvard? Had he not once done settlement work under Jane Addams in Chicago? Had he not written a treatise on industrial relations for the Rockefeller Foundation? All were subjects dear to the President's heart. With such topics for preliminary talk it was not necessary to dwell on the Prime Minister's post-election statement that "the people of Canada are opposed to planning for scarcity by the restriction of production. . . ." That night the President of the U. S., who is a master at conciliating even his most critical callers, and the Prime Minister of Canada, noted in his own country as a great "harmonizer," went to bed under the same roof, each thinking the other was a fine fellow.

Next day, instead of starting South for a fortnight's vacation as planned, Prime Minister King wired his Cabinet to meet him in Ottawa, hurried home. Three days later Franklin Roosevelt at Arlington Cemetery publicly declared:

"The Canadian Prime Minister and I, after thoughtful discussion of our national problems, have reached a definite agreement which will eliminate disagreements and unreasonable restrictions, and thus work to the advantage of both Canada and the United States."

At Ottawa MacKenzie King announced:

"My colleagues have been kind enough to ask me to sign the treaty on behalf of Canada. I am hopeful it will be ready in a few days."

*Before going to Washington Mr. King tried in vain to persuade John W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, an uncompromising low-tariff Liberal, to accept the post of Canadian Minister to Washington. His second choice was reported to be Sir Herbert Marler, for six years Canada's Minister to Tokyo.

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