ANGLO-U.S.A. FINANCES

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 September 1945, Page 5

ANGLO-U.S.A. FINANCES

REPRESENTATIVE OPINIONS LONDON, September 15. “Financial opinion in London is perplexed by the reported American reactions to the Press statements by Lord Keynes and Lord Halifax, and the vital "differences between the British and American Treasury approaches. and appears less confident about the outcome of the Washington discussions,” says the special correspondent of the Australian Associated Press. “City circles, seeing no great possibilities in bilateral trading pacts or exclusive sterling bloc arrangements, welcome the general indications of the British mission’s attitude, and draw the inference- from Lord' Keynes’s remarks that the Labour Government, with due regard for the British Commonwealth interests affected, is willing to trade the Ottawa preferences for a really liberal United States tariff policy phis American aid on an equality-of-sacrifice principle. “Banking quarters argue, moreover, that the alternative to multilateral trading suggested by the sterling bloc school of thought assumes complete but perhaps unwarranted confidence in the willingness of the sterling area . countries to continue sending supplies to Britain on credit. This view does not necessarily coincide with opinion in Labour circles, which are largely attracted to bulk purchasing arrangements, especially with the Labour administrations in Australian and New Zealand. Contrariwise, commodity market and other private enterprise interests contend that such arrangements are diametrically opposed to the American Government’s ideas on external trade policy. “Meanwhile, disinterested economic -opinion forecasts at best an interestfree loan for Britain, with repayment terms conditioned only by Britain’s balance of nayments from year to year, as the most likely American offer of aid. The ‘Financial News’ publishes a suggestion from a London stockbroker that gold production within the Empire could be increased to meet the dollar shortage. His argument is that every ounce of gold produced would relieve the tension and that the export of gold would lessen the need for the export of goods directly needed for home consumption.”