Control of Exports of Raw Materials

AMONG the economic issues enter11ing into post-war international discussion, few have been more prominent than those relating to the distribution of raw materials. These issues have assumed varied forms, but they all rest on one basic fact. The supply of essential raw materials is likely to be geographically separated from the places of chief demand. Hence, those nations which are dependent upon others for their requirements are in a position where their prosperity, and sometimes even their safety, may hinge upon reasonably easy access to such supplies. This dependence upon foreign supplies is, of course, as old as international trade. But in recent years its results have been intensified by two tendencies: one, the rapid growth of this economic interdependence, as a phase of modern industrial development; the other, the increased obstacles placed in the way of satisfying the requirements of the importing countries. The clash of these two opposing tendencies has given the whole problem of raw materials a new and an ominous political significance in international relations. To this result the world war, of course, contributed. In the exaggerated economic nationalism of the post-war period, restrictions and the fear of further restrictions upon access to raw materials have been a source of constant anxiety and hence a threat to the maintenance of peaceful commercial and political relations. Among such restraints none have been more provocative of friction than those maintained or fostered by governments themselves. Governments have increasingly resorted to practices tending to limit exports by making more stringent the terms on which they can be procured. Especially has there been a tendency to do so in respect to raw materials of which one country possesses a partial or complete monopoly. There has been a marked development of such controls since the turn of the century. This, however, cannot be wholly indicated by a mere counting of numbers. For while the number has indeed increased, there has also been a development in technique and in scope of control that cannot be thus measured. Out of a list of some eighteen or twenty controls that are now in effect, or have very recently been in effect, only five had taken definite form before the turn of the century.' But this does not take into

Business · Economic growth · Economics · International trade · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Prosperity · Global trade and economics · Law

• México en la historia global de la segunda guerra mundial

  Open Access•Juan Carlos Álvarez•América Latina en la Historia…•2023

  Add to list