LEASE-LEND TOTALS

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23744, 16 September 1942, Page 5

LEASE-LEND TOTALS

MR ROOSEVELT'S SUMMARY GREATER U.S. OUTPUT URGED (8.0. W.) RUGBY, Sept. 14. The value of lease-lend deliveries for the 18 months for March, 1941* to August, 1942, totalled 5,129,000,000 dollars, and lease-lend is now being administered at the rate of 8,000,000,000 dollars a year, This information was given by Mr Roosevelt in a message to Consrcss * The President said Britain, China, and Russia from the'beginning had carried on without enough guns, tanks, or aeroplanes. It was through their uphill fight that the war had not been lost. "Only by strengthening our allies and combining their strength with ours can we surely win," added the President. Mr Roosevelt gave a warning that only by stripping civilian economy to the bone could the maximum production necessary to ensure victory be achieved. So far the United States had little more than passed the half-way mark towards maximum production. "We and the other United Nations need all the weapons all of us can produce. In relation to their available resources Britain and Russia have up to now produced more weapons than we have, and they are continuing to produce to the limit even though Russia is a battleground and Britain is an offensive base." The President's report, said that at present about 35 per cent.' of lease-lend exports were going to the' United Kingdom, 35 per cent, to Russia, and 30 per cent, to the Middle East, Australia, and other areas, including China. The report added that aid to China had been limited by difficulty of transport, but the development of other means of transportation would relieve this situation. Reciprocal Assistance Reciprocal lease-lend had become a very material and important aspect Of the Allied supply problem, and this represented the most economical use of the United Nations' war resources. Showing that lease-lend was not entirely a one-way proposition, the President explained that in Britain 250.000 workers were busy in construction work for the United States forces, and British guns, tanks, aircraft, and military stores had been turned over to the American Expeditionary Force. Reciprocal aid was being given to American forces in Australia and New Zealand, as well as by the Fighting French in Africa and New Caledonia. "Reciprocal aid has become a very material and important aspect of our supply problem. It puts the idea of pooling all our resources for war in the most dynamic form. It is more than a gracious and much-appreciated gesture of goodwill and reciprocal aid. It represents the most economical use of war resources. It means husbanding time and transport. It means also that the peoples of Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, already on short rations, are freely sharing what they have with our troops." Mr Roosevelt said lease-lend funds were now being spent for many special projects, including further tests of the Seamobile (a shallow-draft vessel originally known as the Sea Otter), and for saving shipping space and refrigeration capacity ty the development of dehydrated foods. Details of how the United States would be able to feed the starving peoples of Europe once victory was attained are contained in an announcement by the United States Department of Agriculture jn connexion with Mr Roosevelt's lease-lend report. This report stated that the Liberty cargo ships now under construction—at the rate of three a day—would be able in a single trip to bring to Europe nearly 800 eggs for each inhabitant of Europe. Each trip of these ships could supply Europe with a full year's supply of milk. Each trip could bring a ton of meat for each inhabitant, based on the raw weight of the product, but dehydration of foodstuffs was solving the great problem of transport. Dehydration was the answer to the problem of getting lease-lend food to the Allies arid supplying the American expeditionary forces, and of feeding liberated peoples of Europe after a United Nations' victory.