Oxford Professor Calls on West To Cut Tariffs on African Trade

"If the politicians of Western Europe and the United States have any real concern for the welfare of the African nations they will remove the barriers they presently impose on the African agricultural export trade," Colin Clark, director of Oxford University's Agricultural Economics Research Institute, recommended last night.

Clark, an exponent of a free market economy who once ran for the House of Commons as a Laborite, explained to a Kirkland House audience that a large foreign trade would enable the African nations to exchange agricultural products like meat, grain, hemp, and simple textiles for vitally needed manufactured articles plus fertilizers they cannot now produce.

Coupled with an increase in agricultural efficiency, such access to the world market would enable the African nations to take steps toward industrial development, he added.

Diversify Economy

However, before any underdeveloped nation can begin to diversify its economy, he explained, it must develop an extensive transport and communications system, its population density must rise, and education must become wide-spread.

Clark startled his audience when he stated. "I welcome the population explosion." He noted that the possibility of starvation might provide the impetus for the primitive agrarian laborer in Africa to work his plot more than the present average of four hours a day.

"The world is learning the lesson that collectivization is nothing but chaos," he explained. The average Chinaman, Clark noted has loss to eat under Mao than he did under Chiang Kal-Shek.