"PRACTICAL DECISIONS DEMANDED"

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25903, 8 September 1949, Page 5

"PRACTICAL DECISIONS DEMANDED"

Discussing to-day's Washington dis- - "s by Mr Bevin and Sir Stafford hpps. ‘•The Times" of London says eno tricks or devices can be dis- • : j exonerate them from tak- ? "the practical and often distasteu decisions demanded." "The Times" continues: “There are i magic formulas to free the British Sjie from the necessity for tignter -ling, harder work, and other tasks which cannot be postnothing done or attempted now can America’s obligation in the G run to follow a more liberal towards imports and oversea '-mg and investments, if both the States and the sterling area ; '-mies arc to live happily and prosily in the same economic world. difficulties and remedies are of the sterling area at large, as the United Kingdom. No could be complete or effective «iich every member of the sterljarea did not subscribe. One thing ®nam: if a salutary regimen of =r.able retrenchment is not pressed by all the other members of Sterling area, if persistent inflathe sterling area in its exin its costs, and in its prices, attacked at the roots, all these about devaluation and other -'--cal measures will be barren and

less as hopes that America might be I cajoled without proofs of proper self- | help to go on giving relief.” According to the United Press, the “New York Times,” in a leading article published to-day, mingles criticism and praise of the British economy. The article denounces illI advised and ill-informed criticism of | Britain and praises the ciyic discipline 1 of the British people. Analysing the causes of British ' financial weakness the “New York | Times” says that Britain is still a Great Power, ranking only after the United States and the Soviet Union. It I continues: “Americans, in short, feel | that the British economy will only be straightened out by a painful process of facing a temporarily reduced standard of living, cutting the cost of the welfare State, and standing up to economic storms, until the labour deployed in industry is re-equipped and its efficiency improved, so that British products will be able to compete on terms of free trade in world markets, and sterling will have a stable, convertible value. “No one asks or expects these goals to be reached now or in the near future: no one under-estimates the self-sacrifice, patience, discipline, and hardships they entail. Britain’s American friends can see no other solution in the long run.”