LEASE-LEND AGREEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1942, Page 5

LEASE-LEND AGREEMENT

Costs Settlement After the War

\ LONDON. February 24

The conclusion of a new leaselend agreement between Britain and the United States was announced simultaneously in London and Washington today.

Under the agreement, the two countries have agreed to postpone indefinitely the final settlement of costs of lease-lend materials, and both nations are committed to virtually unlimited free trade and access to raw materials.

/ The agreement was signed by Mr. Sumner Welles and Lord Halifax.

for our reinforcements to establish themselves and secure domination.

DESTROYED ON GROUND

"They are in many cases destroyed on the ground before they can effectively come into action. We must therefore expect many hard and adverse experiences which will be all the more difficult to bear because they are unaccompanied by a sense of imminent national or domestic danger, that feeling of being in the business ourselves which brought out all the best qualities of our people a year and a half ago. "Beyond this phase of tribulation, which may be shorter or longer in ac- ! cordance with our exertions and behaviour, arises the prospect of the ultimate victory of Britain, the United States, Russia, and China, indeed, for all the united nations, of victory complete over all the forces that have fallen upon us. PROSPECT FOR VICTORY. "The ordeal through which we will have to pass will be tormenting and protracted, but if every one bends to the task with untiring effort and unconquerable resolve, if we do not weary by the way or fall out among ourselves or fail our Allies, we have a right to look forward across a great many months of sorrow, and suffering to a sober and reasonable prospect of complete and final victory." The Prime Minister ended by repeating the words he had used when he resigned from Mr. Asquith's Government on November 15, 1916. , He said then: "There was no reason to be discouraged about the progress of the war. We are passing through a bad time now, and it will probably be worse before it is better, but that it will be better if only we endure and persevere I have no doubt whatever." "Old wars were decided by episodes rather than by tendencies. In this war tendencies are far more important than episodes. Without winning any sensational victories we may win this war. LINES NEED NOT BE BROKEN. "We may win it even through the continuance of extremely disappointing and vexatious events. To win the war it is not necessary to push the German lines back over the territories which they have absorbed, or to pierce them. "While the German lines extend far beyond their frontier, while their flag flics over the conquered capitals and the subjugated provinces, and military successes attend their armies, Germany may be defeated far more fatally in the third year of the war than if the Allied armies had entered Berlin in the first." Mr. Churchill continued: "Actually Germany was not defeated until the fifth year, and we are already far advanced in the third year of the present struggle. Except in this respect, provided that you add Japan to Germany in each case, I derive comfort from this passage which comes back to me like an echo from the past, and I commend it especially to the consideration of the House."—B.O.W. ,