The Hemisphere: Around the World by Cable

For the first time since 1932, delegates from eleven Commonwealth lands gathered for a full-dress trade conference. Called to Montreal by Canada’s trade-and-aid-minded Tory government, the delegates spent a turbulent first week sniping at one another’s trade barriers. Then they got down to business and demonstrated that while free trade is easier said than done, much can be accomplished by the free, friendly flow of ideas.

Though Britain refused to go along with Canada’s demand for full convertibility of the pound, it did promise to wipe out restrictions on dollar-area newsprint, salmon, farm machinery. Canada in turn refused New Zealand’s plea to cut down trade-inhibiting farm subsidies, but agreed to keep down tariff barriers against lamb and mutton, automobiles and aircraft. For the Commonwealth’s smaller, less developed partners, Canada led a big power move to increase development aid, pour more money into the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Colombo Plan to speed progress in Asia and Africa.

Of them all, the project that won the swiftest approval—and could do most to knit the Commonwealth together—was a proposal by Canada’s Finance Minister Donald Fleming for a globe-girdling communication system linking virtually every Commonwealth land. Stretching from Britain across the Atlantic to Canada and on to New Zealand, Australia, India, Pakistan and Africa, the coaxial cable will join all nations by telephone for the first time. Cost: $246 million. Target date: 1968.