ABSTRACT

The USA and Russia have exhibited sober and responsible awareness of the consequences of unleashing their nuclear capacity. Fluctuaions in commodity prices, tariffs and restrictions on trade, oscillations on the foreign exchanges and shortages of capital are among factors outside national control. Involvement in such a political union must entail for Britain, as eventually for present members of the European Economic Community (EEC), a severe restriction on freedom of action, both politically and economically. Interest has been growing in the USA and Canada, and more recently in Britain and Japan, in proposals for a multilateral free trade treaty approach that would held back by the unwillingness of a major trading nation, or group of nations, to make reciprocal concessions. If a multilateral free trade treaty were embarked upon, embracing North America and European Free Trade Association and open to the EEC, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, industrial nations, provision for the developing countries, a material advance could be made in narrowing the gap between rich and poor.