392
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
Reduction in U. S. Tariff Rates D e n i e d t o Germany O t t o Wilson, 3025 Fifteenth St., N. W„ Washington, D. C. LL danger that American chemical manufacturers will be faced with a flood of imports from Germany through the lowering of United States tariff bars has for the time being been removed. On October 15 Germany will cease to share in the benefits of rate reductions granted to other countries under the tradeagreements act, and will pav the rates charged under the Tariff Act of 1930. As Germany is by far the largest source of our imported chemicals, sending us nearly a third of our total purchases from abroad, the news is of special significance to the American chemical industry. This denial of tariff-reduction benefits to Germany sets up a double system of rates which, while not unprecedented, has been rare in our customs history. Its im mediate effect will not be marked, as it involves only those reductions granted in the trade agree ents with Belgium, Swe den, and Haiti and extending automati cally to other countries. But the dis advantage to imports from Germany will become progressively greater as new trade agreements go into effect. The State Department's action was based on a specific provision in the tradeagreements act. Under the act all con cessions granted to any country with which we conclude a trade agreement are to be extended in full measure to all other countries, but any country which dis criminates against American goods may be excluded from sharing in the benefits of such concessions. Ever since the Hitler regime began to put into effect its policy of setting up a close national economy, with exports and imports under a rigid governmental con trol, American interests have complained that they were being subjected to injurious discrimination. Our State Department has filed many protests with the German Government on this score. Largely as a result of this dissatisfac tion, the Hitler government came to feel that the most-favored-nation clause in the existing commercial treaty between Ger many and the United States was an ob stacle to the free working of its foreign economic policy. Accordingly, in Octo ber, 1934, the German Ambassador to the United States gave formal notice of a de sire to cancel that clause. That required the scrapping of the whole treaty, but its other provisions were incorporated into a new treaty which has been ratified by the United States Senate but not, as yet, by the German Government. The one year's notice required to abro gate the existing treaty expires October 14, 1935. With the passing of the mostfavored-nation clause the way is left open for the State Department to refuse to Ger many the tariff favors extended to other countries, until the discriminations against our goods shall cease, and that action has now been taken. It applies to all imports from Germany, whether direct or indirect. The importance of this action to our chemical producers can be realized from a glance at the figures of imports of chemi cals from all foreign countries into the United States. In scores of chemical commodities Germany leads the list as a source of supply for the United States, and in many lines she has a monopoly of the business. Coal-tar chemicals are the most prominent, but the list also includes many kinds of acids, medicinals, am monium compounds, barium compounds, potassium compounds, cellulose products,
A
synthetic tanning materials, phenolic resins, etc. While all these materials will take the maximum rates when coming from Ger many and American manufacturers are to that extent protected against the threat of lower tariffs, there is still danger that much of the protection will be lost if trade agreements providing for lower rates on chemicals are made with other European countries. This is particularly true of coal-tar chemicals. In his brief submitted to the Tariff Commission in connection with the proposed trade agreement with Switzer land, Francis P. Garvan quotes an of ficial statement of the U. S. Department of Commerce showing how the European dye cartel divides up the world export market among the several producing coun tries, and how closely the leading dye in terests are tied together, not only by work ing agreements but also through central ized ownership and control. If the United States should grant lower tariff rates on coal-tar dyes to Switzerland, say, with whom we are now carrying on nego tiations for a trade agreement, it would ap parently be a simple matter for the cartel to switch the United States market to that country and allot other markets to the di rect trade with German producers. Germany can, of course, regain the benefits of our lower tariff rates by ceasing in good faith the practices to which we object. But there appears t o be small prospect that that will be done. Our complaints were directed not only against alleged favoritism to other countries, re acting against our interests, in such mat ters as import quotas and foreign-ex change allotments, but also against a gross discrimination against American holders of German bonds when interest or principal payments became due. These matters are so deeply rooted in the major policies of the Hitler regime that any ma terial alteration in the attitude toward American trade and finance seems out of the question.
VOL. 13, NO. 19
in direction but about 75 per cent of the hot air ran counter to the direction of the spray. Lamont, the Court said, "con templates concurrent spraying." In his patent specification, the patentee had preferred temperatures of 220° to 230° F. for "the soap in the line and 450° to 500° F. for the drying air. All sprayed particles con-tact the drying air at substantially the same temperature. The defendant's mode of operating was that 75 per cent of the soap was sprayed into the hot air at a temperature less than 212° F.; the tem perature of the sprayed soap was not over 200° F. The resulting products of the two> the Court considered quite different. As "to the Lamont patent, the Court con cluded that in view of the prior art it was invalid, unless limited both as to its proc ess and product claims to the specific process and product disclosed by specific example and as so limited is not infringed. T h e plaintiff was represented by Allen τ A Cooperative Agreement with I > the Chemical Society (London) the following rates on journals of the Chemi cal Society are given to members of the AMJBRICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY if
are placed promptly: PUBLICATION
SPECIAL RATE
orders FULL PRICE
Jomnal of the Chemi cal Society, 1936 £2 10s. Od. £ 3 4s. Od. British Chemical AbChemistry) 1936 £ 2 0s. Od. £3 14s. Od. Anoual Reports on tîie Progress of Chemistry, Volume XXXI, 1935 9s. Od. 1 Is. Od . Orders for the Chemical Society publications should be sent to S. E. Carr, Assistant Secretary, Burlington House, London, W. 1, England.
Ghûlean N i t r a t e E x p o r t s I n c r e a s e
Patents Paul D. Boone, Room 4708, U. S. Patent Office, Washington, D. C. L a m o n t Spray Dried S o a p Patent Held Non-Infringed N ONE of the most important suits in recent years involving several millions of dollars, the product sold by the Lever Brothers Co. as "Rinso" was held to be not the same as the product of I^amont patent 1,652,900. The Colgate-PalmolivePeet and the Procter & Gamble Co. were the owners of the patent, which was issued in 1927. The Court struck out vigorously against the issuance of patents of very broad scope without minute in vestigation: "care must be taken to protect the public against extravagant claims and claims of invention covering matters already known as practiced in the art." The defendant, who had engaged in "selling a spray dried ?oap since 1919," employed a process in which the soap fluid was ejected in air currents varying
I
rkPERATiNG under the provisions of \β the old nitrogen fertilizer cartel which expired on June 30, Chile with its natural deposits was able substantially to incxease its nitrate exports, while Germany which produces nitrogen synthetically has been losing ground in the export field, according to the Commerce Department's Chemical Division. These trends explain the severe difficulties encountered in recentt negotiations at London to establish a new cartel, the Chileans not wishing to relinquish their gains and the Germans desiring to improve their position. Considerable shifts occurred during the year in the composition of Germany's nitrogenous fertilizer exports, the most outstanding of which was a marked drop in foreign sales of ammonium sulfate.
W h o Makes It? FR.
GREENBAUM, The
National
Drug Co., 4678 Stenton Ave., Philadelphia, Pa., is desirous of securing a domestic source of sup ply of inexpensive crude uric acid.
