U.S. SENATE TO OPPOSE CUTS IN AID BILL

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 June 1948, Page 6

U.S. SENATE TO OPPOSE CUTS IN AID BILL

WASHINGTON, June 5. Senator Arthur Vandenberg (Republican, Michigan), who is President of the Senate and Republican foreign policy leader, said today that he would lead the fight to restore in the Senate the cuts whic|i the House of Representatives made last night in the European Recovery Programme and related foreign spending programmes. Senator Vandenberg is said to feel that the House has struck a. paralysing blow at American efforts to win the “cold war” with Russia.

The United Press says that Senator Vandenberg’s associates consider the foreign aid issue so imj portant that it may lie fought out at the Republican national convention in Philadelphia a fortnight hence, and may push him into the Presidential picture, although he has insisted that he is not a candidate for nomination. Last night the House of Representatives passed and sent to the Senate a 5.980,710,228-dollar appropriation bill to finance the foreign aid programme. This is 26.7 per cent, less than the Administration wanted, and the total approved by the House is 553,000,000 dollars les sthan Mr Truman asked for. The actual reduction was made far greater by the spreading of the period of spending over 15 months instead of 12 months. In addition, the House directed that economic aid to Japan, Korea, and the Riukius come out of the general foreign fund instead .of being set up as a separate 150,000,000-dollar project under the Army. ■ The House decision was a double rebuff for the Secretary of State (General G. C. Marshall), who protested yesterday that reduced spending over a longer period would con-

vert the European Recovery Programme from “one of reconstruction to one of mere relief.’’ Backers of a bigger appropriation now pin their hope on the Senate, where they propose to put up a determined fight. If they win, the final bill will probably be whipped into,shape by a Senate-House conference committee.