Not Yet One World

POLICIES & PRINCIPLES

The United Nations have already agreed on lots of blueprints for a masonry-constructed peace. But every time they break ground for an actual structure they hit the bedrock of national interests. Last week word went round Washington that President Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes had put off the U.S. crusade for freer world trade until after the November elections. The two ex-Senators knew that when a Congressman scratches a constituent--even a "world-minded" one--he finds a high tariff interest. They did not want to do any scratching before the elections.

Truman and Byrnes have not abandoned old Cordell Hull's faith that the sure cure for the world's economic ills lies in fewer & fewer trade barriers. But, like religion in an age of unbelief, the doctrine of free trade in an age of insecurity is hard to live by. In religion, the prime problem is the devil; in politics and economics it is, respectively, the world of power and the flesh.

Highway of Peace. The U.S. still preached the gospel of multilateralism as a "highway of peace." In Manhattan last week, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William L. Clayton pointed out that the U.S. and Britain were pledged to get their allies to shelve the economic nationalisms that existed between the wars--excessive tariffs, quotas, embargoes, preferences, subsidies, licenses, exchange controls, clearing agreements, barter deals. But Will Clayton failed to say that the U.S.-British declaration of last December is as far as ever from implementation. In December Clayton had said that the 16 "nuclear nations" who do the great bulk of the world's trade would meet this spring to cut tariffs and plan the establishment this summer of an International Trade Organization (ITO) as part of U.N. If Truman and Byrnes had decided to postpone this meeting, it would mean that the list of 2,000 U.S. commodities which State wants to offer for tariff reductions would not be published before November. An effective ITO was at least a year away, and meanwhile the nations were settling back to their prewar restrictive routines.

Barriers of Interest. The fault is not wholly with the U.S. All nations pay lip service to free trade; all fail to practice it. The British agreed to ITO in order to get the U.S. loan, but they fear that it means sacrificing their sovereign power over their own markets to become dependent on an economically undependable U.S. Many

British experts believe that the U.S. will have the greatest depression ever within five years; just as many U.S. experts believe that Britain will never really recover. Russia is diverting the flow of Balkan trade from its normal markets to Moscow. Australia has a brand-new war-born industry that needs "protection" to survive renewed competition. Autarchy has other forms than the one it took under the Nazis.

U.S. and other national interests clash on wool, wheat, shoes, sugar, rubber and many another commodity upon which depend the immediate prosperity of individuals, towns and whole regions. Last winter brought a perfect and distressing example of the practical obstacles to a unified economic world. The six countries most concerned with cotton (Brazil, Britain, Egypt, France, India, the U.S.) met for over a month in Washington, disagreed on almost every point. U.S. cotton growers, thriving on Government-guaranteed high prices, squawked at the mere idea of a cut. The British, wanting cheap cotton, suggested it be exported only from those countries where it was most cheaply grown. Each nation stood firmly for the policy that would most help its own cotton interests. Meanwhile, Asia suffered an appalling shortage of cotton goods, while, for want of foreign exchange, Lancashire cotton mills could not buy fiber; for want of customers, cotton bales piled higher in U.S. warehouses. The world had its needs, but the nations had their sovereignty, and they were making the most of it, in the old familiar way.

Nearly everybody was in favor of U.N., world cooperation, and more trade between nations. But when it came to specific bread-&-butter questions, nearly everybody looked to his own national government, rather than to U.N. or to the principle of free trade, for protection. The contradiction was real and important; the peace, which had been explicitly tied in with an economically free and expanding world, might well founder if national sovereignty refused to bend.

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