Two Kinds of Protection

Surveying the world's trade boom, officials of GATT (the 34-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) reported last week that trade totals for the last six months of 1954 were almost 30% higher than they were in 1950. But two bad practices impede an even greater prosperity, said GATT. Nonindustrial countries (in Asia and Latin America) maintain tariff and quota walls to protect infant manufacturing industries which are in many cases uneconomic. Industrial nations (Western Europe and the U.S.) continue to protect their farmers against imported farm products that are produced more cheaply elsewhere.

The result, said GATT, is that the people of predominantly agrarian countries pay high prices for shoddy manufactures produced in their own factories, while the people of industrial nations are forced to buy expensive home-grown food.

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