STERLING AREA’S DEFICIT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26944, 21 January 1953, Page 7

STERLING AREA’S DEFICIT

MR MENZIES PEFENDS DOMINIONS (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) CANBERRA, Jan. 20. Britain had contributed more to the sterling area dollar deficit than the Dominions, said the Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) today. He was replying to charges by the secretary of the British Labour Party (Mr Morgan Phillips) that the Dominions were largely responsible for the dollar gap. Mr Menzies denied Mr Phillips’s claim that Britain and her dependent territories in the last three years and a half had built up a surplus of about £400,000,000 with the dollar world, while the Dominions had a deficit of £280,000,000. The last United Kingdom balance of payments White Paper for the three and a half year period to June, 1952, revealed the sterling area gold and dollar deficit as £743,000,000, said Mr Menzies. “A break-up of the transactions with the dollar area shows that the United Kingdom had a deficit of £906.000,000,” he said. “Dependent overseas territories which ate big dollar earners were plus £402,000,000 and the rest of the area was minus £280,000,000. The United Kingdom and dependent overseas territories taken together had a deficit of £504,000,000.” Mr Menzies said he did not think any British country had a better record than Australia in the close restrictions placed on dollar expenditure during the last six years.