THE TREND TO NATIONALISM

The outcome of the World Economic Conference has brought sharply into focus the issue of economic nationalism. The dramatic announcement by Norman Davis and Secretary Hull of the end of American isolation coupled with President Roosevelt's early enthusiasm for tariff reduction, seemed to betoken a return to a policy of low tariffs and Wilsonian internationalism. But if the Administration's ardor for the removal of trade barriers ever burned very strong, it has apparently cooled with a growing sentiment that the New Deal can best be achieved within a closed economic structure.

To the great majority of thinking men who viewed with intense disapproval the strangulation of foreign trade by a competitive tariff race, this doctrine of "intra-nationalism" will come as something of a shock. Before condemning it out of hand, they should recognize that the laisser faire economy in which the free traders proved their case is rapidly ceasing to exists. This country has embarked on a far-reaching program of national economic planning. It may be that the domestic adjustments of this program would be upset if our commodity and capital markets were open without restriction to foreign influences. It may turn out that the balanced industrial structure contemplated by the New Deal must be insulated from foreign shocks. The arguments for free trade as the ultimate goal are still unanswerable, but until all nations have adopted a reformed and essentially similar industrial structure, there may be greater advantages in allowing each nation which thinks it sees the light to pursue its salvation alone.

The great danger that must be guarded against if in truth we are headed for a greater degree of economic self-sufficiency is that this development will carry with it ia resumption of American political isolation. The delicate growth of political internationalism fostered by the League and other organs since the war has received violent setbacks through recent developments in Europe and Asia. In the light of these developments and of a policy of economic nationalism, it would be only too easy for the United States to retreat within its shell and ignore all the international issues which are of such vital significance to her and which might involve her in another war. It must be the determined policy of the Administration to bear its share in the task of keeping the world's peace, to work for disarmament and stop building battleships, and, as President Roosevelt said in his inaugural, to play the role of the good neighbor in international affairs.