Family Reunion
Empire preference is at least likely to survive in the form of a tendency of the members of the Commonwealth to get together- and talk before any changes are made in the trading arrangements subsisting between them. The meeting which opened on Tuesday in London was only one of a series of gatherings of Empire countries held in the course of the negotiations which are leading up to an International Trade Organisation under the auspices of the United Nations. They may well be the most important, for the wider inter- national gathering at Geneva next month is due to get down to the brass tacks of tariff bargaining. This subject has been excluded from previous meetings of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment because the United States did not wish to enter upon such delicate matters until the elections of November 1946 were out of the way. This type of concession is usually automatically made to the United States but there can seldom have been an occasion when it turned out to have less justification. The defeat of the Democrats last November was so complete, that an outright undertaking by Presi- dent Truman to abolish the tariff wall round the United States could hardly have made it more sa In fact the reasonableness or otherwise of the American attitude overshadows the whole con- ference. It can make all the difference. The Empire talks are certainly conditioned by it. It is clear enough that the British Government and many of the Empire countries will not agree to the abandonment of Imperial preference and of commodity agree- ments with a political edge, unless they can be sure of corresponding advantages from the United States—and that despite the fact that such abandonment is required by the draft Charter for an Inter- national Trade Organisation which is also to be discussed at Geneva. The key issue is in fact wider still. The only case for the abandon- ment of Imperial preference is that such a step might help to ex- pand the total volume of world trade and the absolute amount of trade conducted by each Empire country. Such an outcome would require a much more enlightened American policy than has at present been seen.
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