Abstract

Everybody's Business

The article focuses on the European Customs Union, which was considered to create a large free-trade area in Europe. To many people both in this country and in Europe the project appeared to be a natural, if not essential, corollary of the mutual self-help program which was to be a condition of further American aid. Nevertheless, it was at a fairly late stage in its deliberations that the Committee of European Cooperation turned its attention to the question. The British government has not been very enthusiastic about the proposal. On the one hand, if a customs union were organized in Western Europe, Britain could not afford to hold aloof; on the other, membership in such a union might prove irreconcilable with the existing empire-preference system.