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Show COMMERCE: Rough Sledding Only through broad international trade, said British Premier Neville Chamberlain a few weeks ago, can peace be assured. In Washington Secretary of State Cordell Hull echoed ech-oed his words because he needed that argument to defend his reciprocal recipro-cal trade program. Since Europe went to war the U. S. has rushed to make treaties with South American Ameri-can nations whose Old world trade outlets have been cut off. The joker jok-er has been that South America's export surpluses, which she would exchange for U. S. manufactured IJiuuui: is, cannot be imported here without damaging domestic markets of American farmers. One principle prin-ciple of the reciprocal trade pro- f,am " JOHNSON a low tariff . , , ,., concession D.dntliketu granted any nation is immediately accorded all other lands which hold treaties. Hence, if the program keeps expanding, critics fear all U. S. tariff walls will be broken down, our self-sufficiency will be destroyed and the U. S. will become dependent on foreign sources. Opened in Washington were hearings hear-ings on a pact with Chile which would reduce tariffs on copper and beans, among other things. Since the reciprocal treaty act comes up for renewal before congress next session, it was noteworthy that three good Democratic senators (Colorado's (Colo-rado's Johnson, Arizona's Hayden and Idaho's Clark) protested. Said Johnson: "The trade program persecutes per-secutes and undermines domestic enterprise . . . permits greater infiltration in-filtration of foreign goods . . . trades off American jobs . . . replaces American taxpayers with foreign producers who pay no taxes here." Evan making allowance for any sectional interest these senators might have, it was pretty certain the trade act will have rough sledding sled-ding in congress. LABOR: Anti-Strike Weapon? Having at last settled the 54-day-old Chrysler dispute, organized labor la-bor turned its guns on the justice department for a much more important im-portant campaign. The target: Assistant As-sistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold, who recently advised that unions are punishable under the bliliiiiitt an i, l-trust, laws if they (1) prevent use of cheap-er cheap-er materials; materi-als; (2) compel com-pel hiring of useless labor; la-bor; (3) enforce en-force systems sys-tems of graft or extortion; (4) enforce ARNOLD illegally . , , ., fixed prices; Ubor was a'rald- (5) destroy an established system of collective bargaining. A few days later A. F. of L.'s President William Green fired a protest pro-test at Attorney General Frank Murphy Mur-phy (whose appointment last winter was protested because he was "too friendly" to labor). Said the protest: pro-test: "We do' insist that the antitrust anti-trust laws cannot be invoked against labor organizations because these laws ... do not permit prosecution." prosecu-tion." Labor's reasoning: That the Clayton act expressly exempts unions. un-ions. It took no Philadelphia lawyer to read the fear in labor's eyes. If the justice department is upheld in its present campaign against material dealers, contractors and union leaders lead-ers in the building trades conspiracy case, the unions can be prosecuted in restraint of trade for all strikes. Build-Up By cutting expenditures in the face of increased revenues, the government gov-ernment hopes next year to put itself it-self in shape for electioneering. Even so, the President admitted at. Warm Springs that his planned economies econ-omies are striking no impressive totaL Actually, since Europe's war will necessitate a $500,000,000 boost in defense outlays, other items must be pared tremendously to hold down the total appropriation. Recently the President announced that any decision on new revenues must be made by congress. That body could choose between raising the $45,000,000,000 debt limit (to be reached this year) or levying new taxes. So fearful was Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt that hi3 big defense program might be misinterpreted, that he told reporters it would be handled in a double budget: Congress will get the regular defense program first, followed by an entirely separate sepa-rate request for about $500,000,000 necessitated by wars in Eurtrpe and Asia. Wiseacres in Washington thought they had the key to next January's Janu-ary's weather vane: If big economies econo-mies are in sight, new income taxes will probably be levied on middle and lower-bracket wage earners, producing a piddling $300,000,000 to $500,000,000. But if another big deficit defi-cit is apparent, tax adjustments will go overboard and the debt limit will be boosted. |