“RAILWAY ROBBERY”

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 February 1947, Page 6

“RAILWAY ROBBERY”

£150,000,000 TO BE PAID BY ARGENTINA BRITISH INVESTMENT LOSS LONDON, Feb. 13. Reuter’s financial correspondent learns that the payment of £150,000,000 for the British-owned Argentine railways will be made in cash in sterling, the greater percentage of which will be paid from Argentina’s sterling balances in London, which amount to about £126,000,000. The dispute between the United States Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. J. W. Snyder) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Dr. Dalton) on the clause of the British-Argentine agreement regarding the use of Argentina’s blocked sterling balance thus disappears because the balance itself will disappear. The correspondent adds that the price paid foi- the railways was regarded as a realistic bargain for both sides. It is officially announced in Buenos Aires that Argentina paid 600,000,000 dollars for the purchase of the British-owned railway network. Pointing out that by the sale of the British-owned Argentine railways to the Argentine Government for £150,000,000 Britain loses her largest single overseas investment, and one vzhich used to help foot the meat and grain bill by about £12,000,000 a year, the city editor of the Daily Express adds: “Another railway robbery this. For these railways cost £235,000,000 to build when £1 was worth 20s. To-day it would cost about £500,000,000 to replace them.