Who Sold Out?

Few old-fashioned Democrats has the New Deal called to its defense, because on few old-fashioned Democratic Policies has the New Deal placed reliance. Last week, however, the one member of the Cabinet who has never been labeled a New Dealer was ordered to the stump in defense of the Administration. Obediently Secretary of State Cordell Hull, a Democratic classicist from Tennessee, packed his bag, boarded a Pullman headed for Minneapolis to speak from the very platform where Alf Landon spoke a fortnight earlier, to answer the attack which that Republican Nominee leveled at President Roosevelt's reciprocal trade agreements.

Though Oldster Hull is proud of having negotiated these tariff treaties, few New Dealers envied him his Minneapolis job, because the reciprocal trade agreements are admittedly unpopular along the Canadian border. NRA, AAA, WPA, PWA, the Wagner Labor Relations Act, the Guffey Coal Act, the Social Security Act have given or promised cash or privileges to some particular group of voters. But trade reciprocity depends on the abolition of privileges, and few of its beneficiaries are aware of their benefits. Steel workers never know what portion of their pay comes from steel that goes into automobiles and machinery sold overseas. Farmers do not know whether their crop is bought by foreigners or by workers who earn their money making goods for export. Only a few exporters can see any direct profit from trade reciprocity, but every farmer and businessman in the U. S.

is acutely pained if his personal tariff is cut.

To three specific Landon charges against the reciprocal trade agreements, Secretary Hull gave three specific answers : Landon: After the Canadian trade agreement the price of cheddar cheese fell from 17-c- to 12-c- 1/2. Hull: The decline was seasonable. Cheddar cheese is now selling at 17 1/2-c-, 25% above a year ago, higher than at any time since Depression.

Landon: The Brazilian trade agreement permitted "a new jungle product," babassu nuts and oils (TIME, Sept. 14) to enter the U. S. duty free to compete with U. S.

butter fat.

Hull: There was never any tariff on babassu nuts and oils even under the Hawley-Smoot tariff.

Landon: Cattle prices have fallen because of the Canadian agreement.

Hull: The duty reduction was limited to a number of animals amounting to only 1/4of 1% of the U. S. consumption. The prices which fell were mostly those of fat cattle, while imports from Canada are mainly lean cattle.

Beyond these particularities, Cordell Hull struck out on his own: "From a level of slightly over $1,600,000,000 in 1932 and 1933, our exports rose to $2,280,000,000 in 1935* and continue this year on an upward trend. . . .

"During the first seven months of the Canadian agreement exports of hams and shoulders to Canada increased 169%; and of other pork, pickled or salted, 329% as compared with the same period of 1935, while lard exports to Canada increased 92%. . . .

"It is true that in 1935 and during the course of the present year there has been an increase in our imports of agricultural products. The increase in 1935 over 1934 amounted to $247,000,000. Of this amount, $75,000,000 represented wholly noncompetitive products--coffee, rubber, bananas, etc. Of the remainder, exclusive of sugar, which is governed by international agreement, only $13,000,000 was accounted for by commodities affected by the trade agreements.

"We enacted the Hawley-Smoot tariff [in 1930], designed as nearly as possible to exclude every foreign commodity deemed in the slightest degree competitive with domestic production. Other countries, either in pursuit of a similar policy or in retaliation, increased their tariffs. The inevitable result was to reduce trade further, to create greater unsalable surpluses, to lower living standards, while privation and unemployment raged among millions. . . .

"I will tell you just when our farmer was taken out of his foreign markets. It was when our agricultural exports slumped from $1,692,900,000 in 1929 to $662,400,000 in 1932. . . .

"Governor Landon was right. The American farmer has been sold out. But the Governor is mistaken as to who did the selling and when it occurred. The 'sellout' took place during the Hoover Administration, and it was the Smoot-Hawleyites who did the work."

*Five days later at Mount Vernon, Ohio, Alf Landon challenged this statement, declared: "Our exports increased only 4% from 1933 to 1935." Republican Landon arrived at this figure by discounting 1935 dollar values 41% for devaluation.

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