HOUSE APPROVES REDUCED AID PROGRAMME

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22657, 7 June 1948, Page 5

HOUSE APPROVES REDUCED AID PROGRAMME

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter- -Copy.ight.)

(10 a.m.) WASHINGTON, June 6. The House of Representatives passed and sent to the Senate last night 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, while the total approved by the House is 533,000,000 dollars in cash less than President Truman asked. The actual deduction was made far greater by spreading the period of spending over 15 months instead of 12.

In addition, the House directed that economic aid to Japan, Korea and Ryukus should come out of the general foreign fund instead of being set up as a separate 150,000,000-dollar project under the army. It was a double rebuff for the Secret, ary of State, Mr. George Marshall, who had protested that the scaled-down spending over a longer period would convert the European recovery programme from “one of reconstruction to one of mere relief.”

Backers of the bigger appropriation now pin their hope on the Senate where they propose to put up a determined fight. Senator Arthur Vanderberg, the Senate president and the Republican foreign policy leader said he would lead the fight to restore in the Senate the cuts which the House made.