Geneva and the I.T.O.

Abstract

the Palais des Nations at Geneva, Switzerland, representatives of seventeen nations are drafting an international trade and preparing an agenda for a world trade conference. Concurrently these same countries are negotiating multilateral tariff agreements one with the other. Officially, these Geneva talks are styled Second Session of the Preparatory Committee of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment. The first session of this committee was held in London in October, 1946. Framework of this London meeting was a charter prepared by the United States in anticipation of a world trade conference. This draft was an extension and clarification of proposals first published in December, 1945, and initialled by both Great Britain and the United States at the time agreement was reached on the terms of the U.S.-U.K. loan of $3,750,000,000. The Geneva talks got under way early in April. Nations represented on the committee were: Australia, Belgium-Luxembourg, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, France, India, Lebanon, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Union of South Africa, United States of America, United Kingdom. Russia is a member of the committee, but so far has not participated even in an observer capacity. The official explanation of Soviet non-appearance was described initially thus: U.S.S.R. felt unable to participate in the work of the committee at this stage as it had not at that time found it possible to devote sufficient preliminary study to the serious and far-reaching questions which were the subject of the committee's discussions. More recently the distinguished Russian economist, Emil Varga, explained Russia's absence from Geneva with the assertion that the problems discussed there have no direct interest for us in view of the state monopoly of foreign trade which is the firm element of our economic system. Mr. Varga termed the conference merely an opportunity for the