Pandora Boxing

What spiteful Zeus put into Pandora's famed box caused scarcely more confusion among the Greeks than occurred in all King George's capitals last week when all the King's Premiers opened their dispatch boxes on the same day and let out all the secret schedules of the twelve bilateral tariff agreements signed among all His Majesty's governments with nine bright red pens at the Ottawa Imperial Economic Conference (TIME, Aug. 29).

At London the Empire's foremost economists floundered in the new sea of schedules, many of which are complicated by such qualifying clauses as "if possible," "whenever practicable" and "circumstances permitting." "The net result," said the Conservative Morning Post, "will be to increase the volume not only of Empire trade but of World trade" .Equally sure of itself, the Liberal News Chronicle declared "the net result of the Conference is to increase not diminish trade barriers." To U. S. citizens the question was: How much will the twelve Ottawa agreements cut down U. S. exports to our two best customers, the United Kingdom and Canada?

Ups & Downs. The secret schedules between Mother Britain and Daughter Canada,most important of the lot, stack up as follows: Seventy-nine classes of manufactured goods on which Canada has tariffs she will now admit from the United Kingdom duty free. In 136 classes Daughter Canada will give the Mother Country preference in either of two ways: 1) by decreasing her tariffs on 53 classes of goods from the United Kingdom while maintaining these tariffs against non-Empire goods; 2) by increasing Canadian tariffs on 83 classes of goods while exempting British goods in these classes from the increase.

A canvass of manufacturers throughout the United Kingdom revealed everything from smug satisfaction among British steel men last week to dismal gloom in the textile area, where mill owners said that under the new schedules they will have no advantage in competing with Canadian mills. Bitterly textile men recalled that the Mother Country's Chief Delegate at Ottawa was Stanley Baldwin of Baldwin's Ltd., famed British steel & iron works. In return for Canada's "favors" (such as they are) Great Britain will take an historic step, abandoning her sacrosanct principle of a "Free British Meal Table" (no tariffs or insignificant tariffs on foods). Under the Ottawa agreements the London Parliament is to bind itself for five years to maintain a myriad of tariffs on foodstuffs, from which Canadian edibles will mostly be exempt. It is this tying of Britain's hands which some of her greatest lawyers have flayed as unprecedented in British constitutional history (TIME, Oct. 10)."

"Dexterity" Obviously both U. S. farmers and U. S. manufacturers will lose by the new deal between Mother Britain and Daughter Canada, a deal typical of the eleven other Ottawa deals. Last week U. S. Department of Commerce experts were instructed to refrain from guessing how big this loss will be. The Department's able Dr. Julius Klein stressed the "dexterity"with which U. S. manufacturers have often surmounted foreign tariff barriers by developing new products. Preliminary estimates by U. S. economists in London were that about $200,000,000 worth of U. S. exports will come within the scope of the Ottawa accords next year, and that between $75,000,000 and $125,000,000 of such lost exports will be gained by nations of the British Commonwealth. Total U. S. exports to Canada last year were $396,355,000; to the United Kingdom $473,400,000; to the British Commonwealth $985,000,000; to the entire world $2,424,000,000.

Midnight Schedules. Under Canadian law rich & pious Conservative Premier Richard Bedford Bennett was able to put Daughter Canada's new schedules into immediate effect one midnight last week, though the Canadian Parliament cannot ratify the Ottawa agreements before this week at the earliest.

In London poor & pious National Prime Minister MacDonald deemed it prudent not to put the Mother Country's new schedules into effect until after a fulldress debate in the London House of Commons, sitting this week. If he takes part in this debate (necessarily defending his government and the Ottawa agreements) Scot MacDonald will thus signalize his complete and final break with Socialism to which all tariffs are anathema.

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