NOTES
- For contrary accounts see J.L. Granatsrein, How Britain's Weakness Forced Canada into the Arms of the United States (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), chap. 4; and Bruce Muirhead, “Trials and Tribulations: The Decline of Anglo-Canadian Trade, 1945–50,” Journal of Canadian Studies 24 (1989).
- Donald Creighton, The Forked Road: Canada, 1939–57 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), preface, 125–7, 226.
- James Laxer, “Canadian Manufacturing and US Trade Policy,” in Canada (Ltd.): The Political Economy of Dependency, ed. Robert Laxer (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973), 125. See also Melissa Clark-Jones, A Staple State: Canadian Industrial Resources in Cold War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 12, for an account of how this school views the early GATT.
- Robert Bothwell and John English, “Canadian Trade Policy in the Age of American Dominance and British Decline, 1942–47,” Canadian Review of American Studies 7 (1977): 63. Bothwell and English identify three foreign economic policy streams which Canadians cultivated: British preference, multilateralism and nondiscrimination, and bilateralism. Their paper argues that the preferred Canadian course was the second, although Ottawa was certainly not beneath the other two when the opportunity arose.
- The hard currency group was comprised of, among others, Canada, the U.S., and some Latin American countries.
- Economist, 9 July 1949, 84.
- For an account of the difficulties involved in trade negotiations during the prior regime of the 1930s, see Ian Drummond and Norman Hillmer, Negotiating Freer Trade: The United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and the Trade Agreements of 1938 (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1989).
- “United States Concessions to Canada,” 26 September 1947, Department of Finance Records, E3(k)2, vol. 3160, file ITO-26, Public Archives of Canada. For an account of the 1938 trade agreement, see Drummond and Hilmer.
- Ibid.
- “Exchange of Notes,” 30 October 1947, ibid., vol. 3608, file ITO-18.
- R.N. Gardner, Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), 315. The “normal” drain on British dollar reserves was approximately US $75 million per week. With convertibility, this increased to an average of US $115 million per week during July and US $l50 million during August. In the last full week before suspension, the rate was US $237. London Times, 25 October 1947, p. 4.
- That was in large part because an Anglo-American logjam over the issue of imperial preference had been broken. Imperial preference, which the U.S. had long viewed as “economic aggression,” was the extension of tariff rates more favorable than the most-favored-nation rate among the countries of the Commonwealth and Empire. For a graphic indication of the American attitude with respect to imperial preference, see Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945–54 (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 366. Clark Wilcox of the U.S. delegation in Geneva wrote to William Clayton, his superior in Washington, that “What we must have is a front-page headline that says ‘Empire Preference System Broken at Geneva’. With this, the success of this whole series of negotiations is assured. Without it, there is grave danger that the whole program will end in defeat.”
- London Times, 31 October 1947, p. 4.
- William Lyon Mackenzie King Diaries, 20 October 1947, p. 999, Public Archives of Canada.
- For an account of Canada's dollar crisis, see R.D. Cuff and J.L. Granatstein, American Dollars, Canadian Prosperity: Canadian-American Economic Relations, 1945–50 (Toronto: Samuel-Stevens, 1978), 66.
- See R.D. Cuff and J.L. Granatstein, “The Rise and Fall of Canadian-American Free Trade, 1947–48,” Canadian Historical Review 58 (1977).
- Robert Spencer, Canada in World Affairs, 1946–49 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1957), 215. See also Department of External Affairs (DEA) Records, vol. 2117, file AR429/3/6, Circular Document #A. 131, 4 June 1948, Public Archives of Canada. For example, the underdeveloped countries at Havana demanded that a committee on economic development be established to protect their interests. This was opposed by developed nations, which favored a tariff committee to administer the GATT with quasi-autonomous powers. The underdeveloped group viewed the tariff committee as an instrument through which industrialized nations would try to maintain economic dominance. Accordingly, the former played up the economic development committee as their protector. As a result, both committees disappeared.
- Winnipeg Free Press, 24 November 1947, 15.
- Economist, 27 March 1948, 361.
- Michael Heilperin, “Notes on the Havana Charter,” Canadian Banker 55:57.
- Memorandum of Conversation, “Annecy Conference,” 20 September 1949, Department of State Records, file 560AL/9–2049, National Archives of the United States. That was entirely understandable, given the political and economic weight the United States carried. As the graph indicates, in per capita terms, Western Europe combined had less than 33 percent of the U.S. GNP, while the British had about 50 percent. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this to my attention.
- Article II read in part, “They will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.” See Escott Reid, Time of Fear and Hope: The Making of the North American Treaty, 1947–49 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977), 167–84 for an account of the genesis of Article II. It was not worth the paper it was written on because, as the powerful U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson later wrote, “the plain fact [was]… that NATO was a military alliance.” See R.D. Cuff and J.L. Granatstein, Canadian-American Relations in Wartime: From the Great War to the Cold War (Toronto: Hakkert, 1975), 127.
- Perry to Deutsch, 7 September 1949, John Deutsch Papers, box 47, folder 328, Queen's University Archives.
- “Discussions with Mr. Raymond Vernon,” 23 January 1950, Department of Finance Records, vol. 578. See also “Confidential Report of Woodbury Willoughby, Chairman of the United States Delegation to the Third Session of the Contracting Parties to the GATT, Supplementary Official Report of the Chairman,” n.d., Department of State Records, file 560AL/12–1349. In that regard, both Canada and the U.S. were incensed by the blatant attempt on the part of the U.K. to keep South Africa on side in the dollar versus sterling debate. In short, if Pretoria did not discriminate against hard currency countries and buy from soft currency sources, then the British would drastically slash imports from South Africa and curtail the flow of investment capital. According to Willoughby, this represented “a callous disregard for the multilateral, non-discriminatory trade objectives of the General Agreement, as well as a disregard of the interests of South Africa, Canada, the United States, and even of their own long-term interests.”
- Carl Corse to Woodbury Willoughby, 1 June 1949, Department of State Records, file 560AL/6–149.
- Canada, House of Commons Debates, 21 October 1949, 1026.
- Toronto Globe and Mail, 10 October 1949, p. 1.
- Economist, 27 August 1949, 1.
- Globe and Mail, 18 August 1949, p. 6. See also Vernon to Brown, 11 March 1950, Department of State Records, file 394.31/3–2540. In a letter sent by Raymond Vernon to Winthrop Brown, Chief, Division of Commercial Policy, Department of State, in March 1950 during a midsession meeting of the agreement, he pointed out that “The CPs came to this meeting, most of them determined to let as little happen as they possibly could.” The reason for that varied, but among Organization for European Economic Cooperation countries “Paris [was] the real show,” while the sterling area was “huddled together in a common crisis front.” As a result, “the typical committee session [was] a dialogue between the US and the UK… with the Canadians chirping prettily from the sidelines.”
- White House Central Files, Confidential File, box 50, file: Negotiations Folder 17, Harry Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library.
- Ibid. See also Foreign Office to Washington, 23 March 1951, Foreign Office Records (FO371), vol. 91903, Public Record Office.
- For a very brief discussion of the September 1949 tripartite talks, see Muirhead, “Trials and Tribulations,” 59.
- Roger Makins, “Anglo-American Tariff Negotiations,” 27 March 1951, Foreign Office Records, vol. 91903. See also “GATT Tariff Negotiations with the US at Torquay,” May 1954, Board of Trade Records (BT241), vol. 2, Public Record Office. See also U.S. Embassy Ottawa to Department of State, 9 May 1951, Department of State Records, file 394.31/5–951. Some American and Canadian officials later claimed that Anglo-American negotiations had failed because Harold Wilson, the president of the Board of Trade, assumed direct responsibility for the discussions. As was pointed out to Washington, “he was [very] anti-American…and… intractable in negotiations.”
- It had long been an article of faith among politicians and officials that Canada, if forced to “choose” between the U.K. and the U.S., would face a vary uncertain future. Louis Rasminsky of the Bank of Canada had explained that point to a group of Harvard graduate students in 1945, a belief that was held just as strongly in 1951 among a wide and influential segment of Ottawa policymakers. See “Anglo-American Trade Prospects: A Canadian View,” 18 March 1945, Louis Rasminsky at Graduate Seminar on International Economic Relations at Harvard university, Bank of Canada, JD-27.
- Reisman to Deutsch, 15 January 1951, Deutsch Papers, box 47, folder 328.
- For the spirit of 1947–1948, see Cuff and Granatstein, “The Rise and Fall of Canadian-American Free Trade, 1947–48.”
- Reisman to Deutsch, 5 January 1951, Deutsch Papers, box 47, folder 328.
- 15 March 1951, ibid.
- Ibid.
- Corse to Beale, 17 March 1951, Department of State Records, file 394.31/3–1751.
- “Notes on Torquay for Mr. Howe,” 8 May 1951, Department of Finance Records, Vol. 566, file 152–17, vol. 6.
- See International Financial News Survey, 13 April 1951, 309.
- Ibid., 27 April 1951, 325.
- Economist, 21 April 1951, 901.
- Bruce Hutchison, “Talk with Johnny,” 4 May 1951, Grant Dexter Papers, box 6, folder 40, Queen's University Archives.
- Embassy Ottawa to Department of State, 9 May 1951, Department of State Records, file 394.31/5–951.
- Bruce Hutchison, “Talk with Johnny,” 4 May 1951, Dexter Papers, box 6, folder 40.
- External Affairs Records, 50092-C-40ICETP-85, 25, June 1951, Department of External Affairs.
- Bruce Hutchison, “Talk with Johnny,” 4 May 1951, Dexter Papers, box 6, folder 40.
- Lester Pearson, “A Review of Measures to Promote Canadian Exports to Soft Currency Countries,” 19 April 1950, C.D. Howe Papers, vol. 4, file S4–12, Public Archives of Canada.
- Louis Couillard to C.M. Isbister, 4 April 1951, Department of Finance Records, vol. 566, file 152–17, vol. 6.
- W.S. Woytinsky and E.S. Woytinsky, World Commerce and Governments (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1955), 222.
- Economist, 30 June 1951, 1544.
- Donald Creighton, The Forked Road: Canada, 1939–57 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976).