Mr. Whitehead intervened here to say that the FCO line was on
the whole closer to that of Hong Kong than to that of the Ministry
of Technology though this was not to say that they were fully in
agreement with either party.
Mr. Stewart said that in his opinion restrictions by the method
of "voluntary restraint" completely outside the rules of GATT would
be a worse blow to GATT than the admission of possibly weak cases
under Article XIX. As for the claim that the Americans could not
be persuaded to use Article XIX, they had of course argued against
the selective approach all along as a matter of policy but this did
not necessarily mean that they would continue to reject the possi-
bility of selective restrictions under Article XIX if they became
convinced that there would be no agreement on any alternative.
The proposal which he would like to put forward was that there should
be agreement that GATT members would be entitled to impose restric-
tions under the provisions of Article XIX and in accordance with
Article XIX criteria of "injury" without compensation or retaliation
provided that in return the importing country was willing to accept
that the restrictions must be strictly temporary that the case
perin
́injury should be subject to international supervision, and that
the restraints should be subject to regular international review.
Mr. Whitehead said that, as regards the question of the selective
approach, he understood that the Americans had suggested to the
Japanese in their talks in Geneva that there should be "trigger
for some items
points"/men
(16
that there should be
some specific ceilings for particular items where restraint would
operate to keep imports below the ceiling); and there would be a
global quota for all other items. In other words they had not so
far show themselves willing to accept restraints on a few items
only.
Mr. Goldsmith said that he did not think that it would be
profitable or possible to pursue further the question of possible
/use