Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Síða 64

56
LE NORD
Countries and express their opinion on such general questions as
may arise.
In this respect the desirability of co-ordination and co-opera-
tion between the countries — also in questions of general trade
policy, and within the framework of mutual interests and obli-
gations — has been stressed at the meetings of the delegations.
At their first meeting in the winter of 1935 the delegations
passed the following resolution on this head: “The delega-
tions recommend to their respective governments closer continu-
ous contact and co-operation in commercial policy towards other
countries, and especially with regard to the following: future
commercial treaty negotiations with outside States, fees and in-
creased duties already introduced or threatened in outside coun-
tries and harmful to the trade or shipping of the Northern States,
as well as import prohibitions, import restrictions or similar
measures of control.
“This co-operation should be achieved, not only through the
delegations, but also, i. a., by means of constant and personal
contact between representatives of the administrative organisa-
tions in the respective countries entrusted with foreign commercial
policy.
“It is, of course, obvious that such purely consultative contact
and co-operation must in no way restrict the right of decision and
freedom of action of the individual Northern Countries.”
The initiative of the delegations principally aimed at a more
centralized and better organized commercial co-operation be-
tween those bodies whose duty it is to draft plans and formulate
in detail the commercial policy of the Northern Countries. The
proposal of the delegations resulted in the appointment by the
governments of the Northern Countries of an inter-ministerial
committee, consisting of one representative from the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs of each country. This committee has since held
regular meetings, at which questions of urgent importance, as well
as the general position in regard to commercial policy, have been
discussed. The object of this co-operation has not been aggressive
measures against other countries, but principally the maintenance
of contact and the exchange of useful information.
At an early stage of its activities, and long before the Hague
Convention of 1937 came into being, the delegations dealt with
the question of extending the Oslo Convention in various respects.
The delegations also took up the question of the attitude of