"WISE AND GENEROUS"

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 54, 1 September 1945, Page 7

"WISE AND GENEROUS"

PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT

RUGBY, August 30. Commenting on President Truman's report to Congress on lend-lease, the "Yorkshire Post" says the President's "wise and generous statement" will do much to allay concern in Britain. , "It is clear from the President's words. that both Britain's important contribution to the war effort and her present difficulties are understood by the United States Government," it says. "President Truman shows all the directness of his great predecessor in office. He warns the American public that an attempt to forte a cash or equivalent settlement of the United Nations' lend-lease debt to the United States would cause economic chaos, leading to a third world.war." The "Manchester Guardian" considers that the report has "distinctly improved the.- atmosphere," and sees the American Administration "anxious to overtake the unfortunate impression which the abruptness- of its announcement last week created." It. questions whether Britain will find it easy to agree with the American ideas of a solution, but adds: "The good intention is there." The .principles laid down are unexceptionable and in full harmony with earlier declarations, on which the rest of the Allies have been relying. TREMENDOUS COST. "The Times," summarising the President's report, says: "The prodigious deeds of the United States, decisive in, the eventual triumph, have cost some £70,000,000,000; but the 15 per cenk of this total which represents the cost of lend-lease has been 'not less effective in promoting the defence of the United States and bringing nearer the ultimate defeat of the enemy' than the balance of 85 per cent., which has been the cost of the direct American effort." It adds, however: "The President might have added that, unless the coming settlement is devised as wisely as he has spoken, the cost for the less rich and most bereft nations may still prove disproportionately large, even against the gigantic price paid by the United States." The President's objectives—the securing of the economic foundations of peace and of full and useful production and employment in all nations and high levels of commerce and stable monetary exchange relationships—are objectives which "have still to be won. by the joint and several efforts of all nations, and no factor will count more towards success or failure than the economic policies the United • States will pursue. "Two world wars and unceasing industrial revolution within her fronr tiers have bestowed on the American people a responsibility for wealth and welfare which knows no boundaries." PRICE OF VICTORY. The "Daily Telegraph," welcoming the President's "writing off of the whole lend-lease debt as part of the price of victory," says, "The report isimbued with the spirit and far-sighted, policy which directed the magnificent: endeavour now terminated. President. Truman looks forward to agreementupon new co-operative methods between the United States and the British Commonwealth and other nations. "The American State Department, he announced, is already working with other departments on an interim plan to feed Britain and the rest of Europe in place of lend-lease." The "News Chronicle" says: "These pronouncements show that the President is looking ahead with prescience and imagination. They provide the starting point for talks between the: State Department and Lord Keynes's Commission, which could not have been ! more felicitously chosen. "They lay the foundations of a continuing accord between Britain and America on principles which must animate the post-war world. They are an admirable beginning to partnership in peace."