AID FROM U.S. FOR REARMAMENT

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25608, 24 September 1948, Page 7

AID FROM U.S. FOR REARMAMENT

Suggested Aim of Sir S. Cripps’s Mission POSSIBLE REVIVAL OF LEASE-LEND

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 23. The political correspondent of the “Financial Times” says: “It is believed in usually well-informed circles in London that one object of Sir Stafford Cripps’s visit to the United States is to discuss the possibility of reviving American lease-lend for “the purpose of financing and equipping British and Western European rearmament. “Sir Stafford Cripps’s case will be that as far as Britain is concerned, Marshall aid will not bridge the gap in the balance of payments and that if the additional cost of rearmaments is imposed this gap must be considerably widened.

“He will confront American critics of the slow pace of British rearmament with facts and figures illustrating the drain which rearmament is likely to impose upon Britain’s already depleted gold reserves. The Americans are aware that if Britain is to rearm she must receive additional aid, and they also know that unless France receives extra help she will be compelled to cut her defence expenditure instead of increasing it.

“Nevertheless, because Marshall aid was represented to the American people as the maximum contribution they would be asked to make to European recovery, the united States Gov-

ernment is reluctant to commit itself to further grants in aid on the eve of the Presidential elections. In view .of this reluctance it is considered unlikely that Sir Stafford Cripps will be able to do more than prepare the ground. No definite action to increase aid to Europe can be taken by the Americans until Congress meets again next January.”