The Press SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1948. Empire and Marshall Aid

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25537, 3 July 1948, Page 6

The Press SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1948. Empire and Marshall Aid

Though only the “ Daily Express ” was quoted in yesterday’s report of the press reception of the AngloAmerican agreement on the terms of American aid to Britain, no injustice is likely to be done to the Beaverbrook group as a whole if its opinions and reasoning are considered as those of the group. They are worth considering, because they represent the case for the only visible alternative to the Marshall Plan and European co-operation. The “ Express ” denounces the agreement as one which finally commits Britain to Europe “at a “ moment when mighty enterprises “ beckon in the Imperial heritage ” and turns her from the opportunity to “ achieve her own recovery by “ developing the Empire ”. After these rotund phrases it is disappointing to hear only the familiar squeak of protest against commitments which forbid British countries to discriminate—i.e., by trade preferences—against non-British countries; for the protest is as empty as it is familiar. There is no such commitment. But if the “ Express ” is wrong in advocating its alternative policy, it is wrong for larger and stronger reasons than that. It is wrong, in fact, for two very large and strong reasons. The first is that “ developing the Empire ” however the “ Express ” defines the Empire, in this context, arid whatever its ‘ theory may be about Britain’s right and means to plan the job and carry it out—cannot possibly bring results great enough and quickly enough to extricate Britain from her present difficulties. Whoever argues as the “ Express ” does must close his eyes to the dominant facts: that the limit to which Britain’s reserves of gold and gold-equivalents can be safely reduced has almost been reached; that, when it is reached, Britain must either depend on Marshall aid or at once and severely cut imports of food or raw materials or both; and that these cuts must bring widespread distress—hunger, unemployment, lower production, more scarcity, more cuts. They must, because there are no sources of supply, within the Empire or outside it, from which the cuts can at once or in the near future be made good. Given time, perhaps; but the very decision which would compel Britain to look for them would lessen her capacity to hold out. The second large reason why the

: Express ” is wrong is that the policy to which Britain adheres in the European Recovery Programme is not in the slightest degree inconsistent with far-reaching policies of development in the colonial empire and throughout the Commonwealth, as the “ Express ” proclaims. On. the contrary, they are closely and vitally connected. Marshall aid will barely close the British trade gap, while aid lasts. Before it ends, Britain must have rebuilt her economy and re-established her trade upon the wider foundations now required for equilibrium on international account. The same holds for Western Europe as a whole. These new foundations will not be secured, except by efforts which reach out to all resources undeveloped or capable of further development, in the British and European colonial groups and in the British Dominions. In the British colonies, British policy can be the mainspring of action; in the Dominions, wise policies of free cooperation. These ends are not “ abandoned ” when Britain accepts Marshall aid and “ turns to Europe they are accepted. The promise to work for them is written in new terms, more significant than ever.