Suburban Conference

Some 350 businessmen from 51 countries met at the swank Westchester Country Club at Rye, N.Y. last week. They were spending an average of about $3,000 each to attend a ten-day meeting of the International Business Conference. For many of the visitors this was their first opportunity since 1939 to compare trade notes with competitors and customers.

Before knuckling down to day & night discussions of cartels, tariffs, currency restrictions and the other formidable problems, some of them expressed their hopes for the future.

Sweden. J. Sigfrid Edstrom, chairman of the Swedish General Electric Co., and president of the International Chamber of Commerce, hoped for a worldwide lowering of tariffs and reduction of import quotas. Einar Flygt, vice president of the Swedish Cellulose Co., said Sweden was ready to ship 300,000 tons of chemical pulp (for papermaking) to Britain, and one million tons to the U.S., as soon as the shipping blockade is broken. Some Swedish ships have already been loaded with pulp; he hoped they could sail soon.

Britain. British manufacturers who have received $120,000,000 of U.S. Lend-Lease machine tools are dissatisfied with the probable terms of payment. At war's end the U.S. may ask for full payment, minus depreciation. The British manufacturers, who claim that the U.S. machines cost twice as much as British machines, hoped that settlement would be based on the British value.

India. Sir Chunilal B. Mehta hoped that U.S. businessmen would not support a U.S. international policy that subsidizes exports of U.S. surplus cotton while the U.S. exhorts other nations to abolish similar artificial stimulants to their foreign trade (see Government).

The U.S. Welcoming the delegates to Rye, Robert Gaylord, N.A.M. president, said, ". . . The manufacturers of the U.S. recognize these basic principles:

"If we are to export goods, we must receive payment for them in raw materials and manufactured goods of other nations.

"If we export capital, we must do so with the knowledge that it can be returned to us only in goods and services."

Globe-trotting Eric Johnston, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a press conference: "From Iceland to South America and from Mexico to Russia the crying need around the world seems to be money."

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