Translation Trouble

Whatever had become of postwar free trade?

Only a year ago, the U.S. had still believed that economic and political freedom were inseparable in One World. Since then, political hopes have been dulled by continued East-West tension, economic hopes are hardly mentioned at all. In London last week, an international group met (very quietly) to discuss free trade.

The group: U.N.'s Preparatory Committee of the International Trade and Employment Conference. It was significant that, in order to convene it at all, the sponsor (U.N.'s Social and Economic Council) had to promise timid participating nations that the meeting would be truly preparatory, and that no commitments were expected from anyone. It would merely propose an annotated agenda for a future conference, which might get down to cases.

Can Harry Do It? Even though the U.S. is currently the world's chief ad- vocate of free trade, distrust of U.S. intentions is one of the chief reasons for other nations' uneasiness. The British, for instance, claim that they still do not know whether or how much or when the U.S. would be willing to lower its own tariff barriers in exchange for a relaxation of the Empire Preference system and British import restrictions. They know that the U.S. President has powers to slash tariffs as much as 50%, but they imply (as politely as possible) their doubts that Harry Truman could actually do so at the moment.

Another obstacle: the U.S. is the last more or less laissez faire nation in a world of controlled economies. The guardians of those other economies believe that U.S. freedom is really a wild lack of order which might endanger all who are in any way tied to U.S. economic policies. Thus the British have in principle agreed to the broad U.S. "Proposals for Expansion of World Trade and Employment" (1945), but are balking at their specific implementation. Around the London trade conference last week, talk of additional controls was just as loud as talk of free trade. The Dutch delegation suggested that-not free trade itself, but one of its ultimate objectives (namely, full employment) should be the conference's main topic. The British even talked of instituting U.N. economic sanctions against nations which fail to maintain full employment.

The Empty Booth. Difficulties between the U.S. and Britain, however, are small compared to those between the U.S. and the rest of the world. As one U.S. expert put it last week: the London conference will have achieved a great deal if it merely manages to express our official free trade policies in terms that Czechs, Frenchmen and Ecuadorians can understand, even if they do not agree.

In London's gloomy Church House, the ordinary kind of linguistic translation was proving difficult enough. Perhaps symbolically, the simultaneous interpreting system (as used at Nuernberg), which was to be installed in the conference room at Church House, did not work last week. In glass booths, marked "English," "French," "Spanish," interpreters were working merely for practice. The fourth booth, marked "Russian," was altogether empty. The Soviet Union had declined to attend the conference "at this stage."

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