U.S. FOREIGN AID BILL PASSED BY SENATE

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25878, 10 August 1949, Page 7

U.S. FOREIGN AID BILL PASSED BY SENATE

5,647,724,000 Dollars For Year 1949-50 CUT IN APPROPRIATION NOT RESTORED (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) x (R ec. 9 p.m.) WASHINGTON, August 8. After three weeks of bitter dispute, the United States Sen Al? between the Senate and House versions. The bill allocates 5,647,724,000 dollars for foreign aid for the 1949-50 financial year. The vote in the Senate came after the defeat of two Republican attempts to insert an amendment that would have denied economic aid to Britain and other countries which are nationalising basic industries. The bill, as approved by the Senate, escaped all other crippling amendments, but it does not restore the cut of 674,820,000 dollars ordered by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill earmarks 4,702,380,000 dollars for the Economic Co-operation Administration; 900,000,000 dollars for relief and administrative costs in occupied Germany, Japan Korea, and Trieste; 45,000,000 dollars for aid to Greece and Turkey; and 336,000 dollars for the Congressional “watchdog” committee, charged with keeping a check on the aid programme. The Senate bill allocates 39,254,000 dollars more than the amount voted by the House of Representatives.

ANTI-SOCIALIST MOVE DEFEATED

Defeated amendments included one that would have provided 50,000,000 dollars in aid for Spain, and one that would have earmarked 1,350,000,000 dollars for the purchase of American farm produce surpluses. The amendment, aimed at denying aid to Socialist countries, was advocated by Senators Kenneth Wherry and James Kem, both of whom are Republicans. Senator Wherry said it was unfair to “tax the American people to finance Socialism abroad.” He scoffed at the State Department’s claim that, by attaching conditions to the aid programme, the United States would be meddling in the internal affairs of the participating nations.

■i.'? h L erc is nothing Wrong with Europe that hard work and a decent regard for private enterprise will not cure,” Senator Wherry said. Senator Kem, who proposed the amendment, told the Senate that it was not aimed at Britain, but at Socialism in all countries in the Marshall Plan. Socialism is much worse in '"'ra .je than m Britain,” he continued: “France has nationalised about two-fifths of its economy, while Britain has nationalised one-fifth. The amendment., is merely an effort to save the free enterprise system in all the participating countries. If they continue down the road of Socialism, they should understand that they do so without our assistance.”