EMERGENCY AID TO EUROPE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25303, 1 October 1947, Page 7

EMERGENCY AID TO EUROPE

Congressional Committees Summoned

MR TRUMAN NAMES THREE COUNTRIES (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) ! ec. 10.10 p.m.) NEW YORK, September 29. ' After meeting Congressional leaders in Washington this >:■ >rning, Mr Truman announced that he would ask key mmittees in the House and the Senate to meet as soon as .j» ssibie to begin work on an emergency programme, totalling 0,000,000 dollars, to aid France, Italy, and Austria. Mr Truman said that the avaUable funds to prevent itarvation and bitter cold would last only to December 1. After that Congressional action would be necessary. Mr Truman said that the needs of Britain were not being taken into account in this emergency programme. “England fc not in a serious situation at the present time,” he said. The President explained that a decision on the summoning If Congress would depend largely on the findings of the committees. He added that the available funds to December 1 would merely carry western Europe on what he described as a Starvation basis,” and that 580,000,000 dollars would be needed jo take Europe through the cold weather until March.

EXECUTIVE ACTION “BARRED”

Mr Truman, in a prepared statement, said: “The prospect of a general Recovery programme for western Europe aided by the United States has feised their hopes for /eventual recovery and has strengthened the Bemocratic forces, but if this recovery programme is to have a chance of success means must be found for aiding France and Italy to survive this critical winter as free and independent Rations.” Mr Truman said that the possibility if using the funds of the Exportmport Bank, the Commodity Credit 'orporation, and other executive gencies had been searchingly examned, but the use of such funds for oreign relief was barred, and th 6 •ther moneys available to the Governnent were inadequate. Therefore, assistance could come Only from Congress. He said that he believed that all pvho had attended this morning’s meeting, including 11 members of Congress of both parties and Cabinet members, had agreed on the urgent nature of the European crisis. Mr Truman’s statement is taken to mean that a special session of Congress is now virtually certain unless Republican opposition proves too obdurate. . , Mr Truman did not mention what amount would be needed to aid Germany and to assume Britain’s share of the occupation costs. He did say, how- I

ever, that additional funds would be needed, and authoritative sources told Reuters that 500,000,000 dollars would be required to take over Britain’s dollar commitments in Germany.

EXCLUSION OF BRITAIN

Britain will have no choice but to rely on her own and her Empire’s gold resources and her ability to borrow from the International Bank and the International Monetary Fund to keep herself “dollar solvent” between now and March at the earliest. Reuters says that this appear d to be officially confirmed beyond qualification when Mr Truman said that “England is not in a serious situationtat present.” Reuters adds: “A iritish official in Washington expresad perturbation over the statement, accompanied •as it was by a frank deaription of the plight of France Itafi, and Austria. “British officials a<fpit that Britain has not formally asfced for any ‘interim aid.’ They pdfcit, however, to the irony of two former enemy States and a third which spent most of the war under German occupation receiving American dollars while the British demand can be said to be only a few degrees less urgent “It was learned that at to-day s session with Congressional leaders Mr Truman virtually accented the early necessity of the United States assuming Britain’s share of the dollar upkeep of Germany. This however, can be taken as only a negative benefit for

Britain—a recognition that Britain cannot pay with what she has not got.” The “New York Times,” commenting in a leading article on Mr Truman’s conference with Congressional leaders, says: “If the President’s widelyheralded ‘action’ in the food crisis last week proved to be a dud, then that description is no less applicable to to-I dav’s portentous White House meeting. ( “Even as Mr Truman tells us that Europe’s fate is trembling in the balance he hesitates to come to grips with the issue the situation presents. The question of a special session is something on which. the President says a decision will be reached later. “As in the case of the food problem, Mr Truman has elected, apparently, to sit tight and hope for a miracle-*a miracle which will relieve him of the necessity of making a decision that might prove politically unpopular.” The “New York Herald Tribune’ says: “Mr Truman either does not believe there, is anything particularly serious about the double crises of starvation in Europe and price inflation in the United States, or else he has. ho grasp of the kind of action the crises demand.”