AID FROM THE COLONIES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25270, 23 August 1947, Page 9

AID FROM THE COLONIES

BRITISH APPEAL FOR SUPPORT

SUGGESTED AVENUES OF ASSISTANCE (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, August 21. The Colonial Secretary (Mr A. Creech Jones) has sent messages to the British colonies explaining Britain’s economic crisis and how the colonies could help. “If a common effort is made, we can rebuild a strength greater than we had before the war,” he said.

The colonies could help by ensuring that they did not add to the United Kingdom’s difficulties by importing more than they could pay for with their current earnings, since that would involve using up colonial reserves, and asking the United Kingdom to export goods without any return in imports. The colonies could also help by keeping imports, where possible, below the actual earnings of their exports, thereby adding to the colonies’ financial balances and strengthening the sterling area generally. Mr Creech Jones urged the greatest economy in imports from anywhere, including the sterling area, to avoid calls on export capacity which might otherwise be used to earn hard currencies. Many colonial territories could increase their production of goods which the United Kingdom now had to pay for in dollars, or of goods which could be exported for dollars. The restriction of consumption was a temporary expedient which it was most undesirable to continue permanently. Mr Creech Jones added that the world’s need of food and raw materials offered the colonies an unprecedented opportunity to develop thpir production and “trade to the advantage of all parties.