RECOVERY BY BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27128, 26 August 1953, Page 9

RECOVERY BY BRITAIN

“Underlying Fact Of World Situation” (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) NEW YORK, August 24. Writing in the New York “Herald-Tribune,” the columnist, Stewart Alsop, says: “The news from Britain is good. It is simply this: Britain is back on her feet again.

“Although it made few headlines, Britain’s remarkable economic recovery is one of the great underlying facts of the world situation.” v

After referring to the general brightness and cheerfulness in Britain, Alsop says: “The plain fact is that Britain is in the midst of a boom by any reasonable definition of that word.

“Unemployment is now virtually non-existent, the crucial gold and dollar reserve is up almost three-quarters of a billion dollars over a year ago, the production index has turned up again, and there is solid respect for the value of the pound sterling. Inflation has almost stopped and the pound is holding its own steadily on the world market.” Alsop says that though these pleasant facts are admitted by British leaders and economic experts, he finds they have an almost superstitious fear that the position will not continue. “British economic experts—knockers-on-wood and crossers-of-fingers almost to a man—point to a whole array of clouds on the economic horizon.

“British exports are barely holding their own. Germany is beginning to bite deep into British markets, and Japan must also' export or die. Other worries are fear of a rise in export prices, which might result from labour’s current wage demands, lagging coal production and comparatively low investment in new industrial plants. “But the biggest, darkest, and most terrifying cloud on the British horizon is an American cloud —and so far a strictly imaginary cloud—fear of an American slump. Even a small American slump is a British nightmare. “New Sense of Self-Confidence”

“Yet beneath such clouds on the horizon, real or potential, the great central fact of British economic recovery remains. If this recovery proves real and permanent—a big ‘if —it will not only be good news, but also a great triumph of American policy.

“But this triumph of American policy is also already creating a new situation which American policymakers must take fully into account. The British, and especially the leaders of the now greatly-strengthened Conservative Party, have a new sense of self-confidence, of standing squarely on their own feet. By the same token, a most convenient instrument of American policy—British dependence on American economic aid —hardly exists any more. “In this new situation, any American tendency to treat Britain as a mendicant or satellite—or even as a very junior partner, whose wishes may be safely disregarded—will be absolutely fatal to the British-American alliance.”