ECONOMIC PLAN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 137, 12 June 1941, Page 13

ECONOMIC PLAN

U.S. AND CANADA

INVENTORY OF RESOURCES

(By Air.) SAN FRANCISCO, May 31 The United States and Canada, it was learned in Washington, will establish very shortly two closely collaborating economic planning boards to speed the mobilisation of American resources for aid to Britain and defence of the Western I Hemisphere. President Roosevelt and the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Mackenzie King, are expected to announce simultaneously the membership of the United States and Canadian boards of three members each, which will survey the resources of the two countries and guide their co-opera-tive economic, industrial and financial policies. The new boards in general are expected to complement —in the economic and industrial fields—the work of the joint United I States-Canadian Defence Board established to co-crdinate the military and naval defence of North America. All but one of the members of the new twin boards have been selected it was learned, and President Roosevelt is expected to decide on the third man of the American board very shortly. All names have been closely guarded by the White House. I he boards, it was learned, would immediately undertake a systematic inventory of the United States' and Canada's present and potential resources, production, manufacturing capacities, supplies, priorities and other vital elements involved in providing the quickest and greatest possible assistance to Great Britain and other natiors lighting against aggression, and strengthening the defences of the American republics. Acting as a joint board, the boards will have the following purposes: To collaborate in solving economic, industrial and financial problems essential to all-out aid to Britain and to insure the peace and security of the Western Hemisphere. To co-ordinate the interchange of raw materials and manufactured products, and synchronise the production of munitions and planes and achieve maximum production and shipments, without duplication of efforts. To initiate a long-range study of. ways and means to "cushion" the after-effects of the war and minimise the hardships attendant upon the shuttingdown of defence industries. In general, the twin boards will expedite the programme agreed upon by President Roosevelt and Mr. King at their Hyde Park conference on April 20, for close collaboration in American and Canadian defence production. Under that programme the United States was expected to acquire several hundred million dollars' worth of Canadian raw materials and other produce "urgently required" for defence production. As an example of the co-operation it was stated that the United States Navy had just placed a 900,000 dollar steel order with a Canadian firm. Canada has been a major purchaser of American products, including planes and war munitions and implements, paying cash. Whether any Canadian participation in the 7,000,000,000 doll lar lease or lend programme is con- | templated has not been made known.