Minor Mercies Some reference was made in these columns last
week to Turkey's action in abolishing import quotas. It is satisfactory to observe since then that France has doubled her quota of British coal imports, an action from which it may be hoped that South Wales in particular will derive some benefit. Further than that, a revised trade agreement has been concluded with *rgentina and a new agreement with the Jugoslav Government, the latter involving the more generous grant of licences for imports of British goods into Jugoslavia. In a world in which the free and natural flow of trade is artificially impeded at every frontier in the interests of a more or less aggravated self-suffieiency, it is something no doubt to feel that after nine years- some nations are beginning to take to heart the declaration of the Economic Con- ference of 1927 that the process of tariff-raising had gone much too far and that " the time has come to move in the opposite direction "—though it is not in the main Great Britain that is moving. About the Argentine agreement no details are known, and many misgivings felt. It is understood, from Buenos Aires reports, to involve a tax on Argentine meat, which means reduced freights for British ships, increased exchange difficulties for British investors in Argentine stocks, and a check on cheap meat for the working-classes of this country. The compensating advantages will need to be considerable for the agreement to inspire any general satisfaction.
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