LEASE-LEND AID

Grey River Argus, 8 January 1944, Page 3

LEASE-LEND AID

AMERICA’S GREAT EFFORT For the United Nations WASHINGTON, Jan. 6. President Roosevelt has sent to Congress his thirtieth report on LendLease operations. It shows that the lend-lease aid from March, 1941 to the end of November last was 13.5 per cent, of all the United States war expenditure. The report states: American food is helping to maintain the rations of the Soviet Army, British soldiers, and war workers and others on the front or behind the lines. Lend-lease is the essential element of the United Nations’ strategy to win, principally with their own weapons. Their factories use principally their own raw materials and equipment. Their peoples raise most .of the food they eat, but lend-lease supplies have been an essential supplement to their own resources. Aeroplanes, guns, raw materials, food and other goods transferred were 87 per cent, of the total aid to date. Transfers of finished munitions were 53 per cent, of the total. Industrial items were 21 per cent, and foodstuffs other than agricultural products 13 per cent, of the total. The upward trend has been due in a large part to the sharp rise in aircraft ordnance and other munitions transferred. Munitions were 61 per cent, in the first eleven months of 1943. Rental and charter ships and ferrying aircraft were the most important services, being over half the value of all the services. Much of the balance consisted of training combat pilots, repairs to warships and merchantmen, assembly of aircraft abroad, and similar war services. Over 600,000,000 dollars have been expended on guns, aeroplanes, and other war production facilities in the United States. This represented a substantial addition to our own industrial capacity. These plants have not been transferred to foreign Governments. S'ome are producing munitions for our armed forces. Our Allies have been able to strike more damaging blows and are fighting more strongly than ever by the side of our own forces. The war will be much shorter for it. This, of course is the principal war benefit the United States receives under the lendlease programme. VAST AID TO RUSSIA.

The report continues that shipments to the Soviet Union have been over a quarter of the lend-lease exports to all countries. In the first ten months of this year shipments were 63 per cent, higher than the whole of 1942. In October we sent the Soviet nearly 7,000 planes—-more than any other lend-lease coun-try-over 3,500 tanks, 195,000 motor vehicles, including trucks, jeeps and motor-cycles. We also shipped 1,790-, 000 tons of food and agricultural products. These have been- largely items in which production has fallen far short of requirements, including wheat, flour, sugar, canned meat, ■edible fats, oils, dried fruits and vegetables. The Soviet urgently requested butter for the army, particularly the many wounded soldiers recuperating in hospitals, We were able to send 33,400 tons. No butter has been scheduled for lend-lease export to any other country. The United States received as reverse lend-lease 8,250 tons of butter from Australia and New Zealand for the Pacific Forces. “We also sent to Russia 10,000 tons of seeds for thirty staple crops, five and a-half million pairs of army boots, 16,600.000 yards of woollen cloths, 251,000 tons of chemicals, 144,000 tons of explosives, 1,198,000 tons of steel, 342,000 tons of non-ferrous metals, and 611.000 tons of petroleum.

AID TO BRITAIN. Lend-lease exports to the United Kingdom totalled nearly six thousand million dollars, or 43 per cent, of the shipments to all areas. Military items have been 40 per cent, of the total, divided equally amongst the three major categories, namely, ordnance and ammunition, aircraft and parts of tanks and other motor vehicles. Industrial items have been 26 per cent, foodstuffs and agricultural products the remaining 34. There has been a sharp increase in exports of munitions to the United Kingdom. The value of tanks and parts sent this year has been over nine and a-half times the combined total of 1941-1942. Although the food sent was only 10 per cent, ol British total requirements, it represented the difference between having and not having enough to carry .on effectively the war effort. Foods have been mainly concentrated varieties of high food value, essential to the health of the armed forces and munition workers, yet requiring the minimum space. The British supplied our soldiers with fresh vegetable, flour, potatoes, cocoa, tea, foods grown in (Britan and the Coronal Empire. The aid involved hundreds of special projects. “After studies revealed a serious shortage of coal for future military operations and essential civilian requirements, funds were made available to purchase relatively small amounts of mining machinery. t& increase production. British coal-nao been used to supply the American and Allied forces in the Mediterranean and other overseas needs. Ferry routes have been developed by the United States and British jointly to facilitate delivery of planes to Britain, the Middle East, and Russia. Lend-lease funds were an important factor in building and equipping airports along the routes, constructing and maintaining repair supply depots. The British, under the reverse aid, built a great number of airfields toi our forces. Britain, like the United States, spent several hundred million dollars building in various parts of the world, airfields essential for carrying on the war. These were used by many of the United Nations. Supplies from the United States used in building or equipping airfields in lands of the Allies were furnished under the Lend-lease Act. The Act, provides that benefit to the United. States mav be payment, or repayment in kind or property, or any., other direct or indirect benefit tne> President deems satisfactory. ’ “The final determination to benein is deferred until the extent of the defence aid is known, and the progress of events makes clear the imai terms of the conditions of benefits, which will be in the mutual interests of the United States and the countries receiving aid. The equipment of airfields abroad will be fully taken into account in the final summing up for strategic and commercial purposes, and" involves many other factors beside lend-lease. The n nal complete answer can be found only through continuing the successful t collaboration of the United Nations in international commerce after the war, and the development of the system of general militarv security / in which the interests of the Urnted States and other United Nations.'’' are fully protected.” / IN REVERSE. The United States is receiving directly as reverse lend-lease without payment substantial supplied provided by the Allies within limits of their material and financial resources. Up to last June, the United \ Kingdom spent for reverse lend-lease? to tne United States 871.000.000 i dollars, New Zealand 51,000,000 /and India 57,000,000. The figures db not in-

elude supplies and services to the U.S. forces in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and elsewhere. Similar aid is being provided by the Belgians and French. The United Kingdom, New Zealand and India also agreed to provide without payment raw materials, commodities, and foodstuffs previously purchased by us in S'.outhi ern Rhodesia and the Colonial EmI pire. Similar arrangements, states the report, are under negotiations with South Africa and Australia. British shipping to carry these supplies, which include such strategical materilas as rubber, rope fibre, chrome, cocoa, tea and oils, is also under reverse lend-lease. The French have similarly undertaken to supply strategical materials to North Africa. We are also receiving reverse aid as the need arises in China and the Soviet Union. Both had to strain their own manpower, transportation and other resources to the utmost in fighting our enemies on their soil, and have not been in a position to provide large amounts of aid. The President emphasised that neither the lend-lease statistics nor dollar funds of any kind could measure the relative contributions of the nations towards winding up the war. The real measure of aid we and other United Nations have received from the Soviet people is to be found at Stalingrad, Kharkov and Kiev and in the millions of Nazi soldiers killed, wounded and captured, who will not be able to oppose our forces in Western Europe. And so with all our fighting Allies—-the British, whose forces fought in the Mediterranean campaign were considerably larger than our own; the French who fought with us in Tunisia and are lighting now not only in Italy but as an heroic army of underground, resistance in I rance itself. .. The money cost ol reverse aid. great as it is, is no sure measure of the help we receive from our Allies. The principal Allies have contributed fully in proportion to their resources. The total United States war expenditures including lend-lea'se, have increased from one-third last yiear to one-half this year of the national income.'’’ , “The coming year will be a year of decisive actions in the war, said the President. By combining their strength, the United Nations have increased the power of the common drive to defeat the Axis. We have already beaten back the enemy on every front on which we are engaged. At Teheran and Cairo, plans were lagreed on for major offensives, which [will speed the day of victory. With ’the closer unity there achieved we ■shall be able to strike ever-increas-ing blows until the unconditional surrender of the Nazis and the Jap“Mutual aid has contributed subtantiallv to the strength of the United Nations. The flow of lend-lea.se 'assistance from the United States to the Allies and reverse lend-lease from the Allies to us has increased the power of our united offnsives. Some countries like the United States and Canada, located away from the fighting theatres, are able to make available to the other nations, large quantities of food, manufactures and arms. Others, like the Soviet Union and China, require virtually everything they can produce to fight the eneriiy on their* own soil. The cost of war to us and our Allies is high. The more fullv we can now mobilise manpower supplies and other resources for the decisive task ahead, the lower will be the final cost of victory. The United Nations in the New Year are stronger and more firmly united than ever before. The Germans and I Japanese will both soon learn that to their sorrow.”