Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Tables
- Introduction
- 1 Britain's international economic position in the 1920s
- 2 The political economy of protectionism
- 3 Imperial preference and the Ottawa Conference
- 4 The Scandinavian negotiations: formulation of policy
- 5 Completion of the first phase of negotiations: Scandinavia, Germany and Argentina
- 6 The world economic conference, Finland and Japanese competition
- 7 The Baltic states and Poland
- 8 British agricultural policy and imports during the 1930s
- 9 British exports to the trade agreement countries
- 10 Appeasing Germany and the United States
- 11 Some general conclusions
- Appendix A United Kingdom: payments, clearing etc., Agreements in force 1931–1938
- Appendix B Miscellaneous trade and payments agreements
- Appendix C Imports into Britain from foreign agreement countries
- Appendix D Total exports from Britain to foreign agreement countries and four dominions
- Appendix E Imports of selected commodities into UK, 1931, 1937, showing percentage from Empire sources
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - The Baltic states and Poland
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Tables
- Introduction
- 1 Britain's international economic position in the 1920s
- 2 The political economy of protectionism
- 3 Imperial preference and the Ottawa Conference
- 4 The Scandinavian negotiations: formulation of policy
- 5 Completion of the first phase of negotiations: Scandinavia, Germany and Argentina
- 6 The world economic conference, Finland and Japanese competition
- 7 The Baltic states and Poland
- 8 British agricultural policy and imports during the 1930s
- 9 British exports to the trade agreement countries
- 10 Appeasing Germany and the United States
- 11 Some general conclusions
- Appendix A United Kingdom: payments, clearing etc., Agreements in force 1931–1938
- Appendix B Miscellaneous trade and payments agreements
- Appendix C Imports into Britain from foreign agreement countries
- Appendix D Total exports from Britain to foreign agreement countries and four dominions
- Appendix E Imports of selected commodities into UK, 1931, 1937, showing percentage from Empire sources
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Negotiating stragegy: the next phase
While the World Economic Conference had been in progress discussions with Finland had continued and a harassed Board of Trade had conducted preliminary talks with the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In considerable part the Baltic state negotiations represented a victory for the views of Laurence Collier, head of the Northern Department of the Foreign Office, who had first had to overcome the indifference of the Board of Trade.
Early doubts in the Board of Trade had centred on the supposed inability of British negotiators to wrest much from the Baltic states in the wake of the new restrictive bacon policy, a pessimism shared in the Economic section of the Foreign Office. Frank Ashton Gwatkin wrote of the Baltic states, ‘negotiations will start, if they ever do start, on a basis so unfavourable to them that they can hardly be expected to offer much advantage to us’. The Northern Department had different priorities. Anxious in case the historical and geographical pull of Moscow and Berlin might otherwise be reasserted over the Baltic states, particularly now that regional agreements were becoming so important, Collier wanted Britain to move quickly to tighten economic ties. The Board of Trade began to think that negotiations might be fairly easy with these countries once the main lines of policy towards Scandinavia had been settled, and was induced to give some commitment to negotiate once the other agreements were concluded.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- British Protectionism and the International EconomyOverseas Commercial Policy in the 1930s, pp. 189 - 211Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993