AMERICAN PROPOSAL TO USE EUROPEAN COLONIES’ RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPMENT

Grey River Argus, 25 March 1949, Page 5

AMERICAN PROPOSAL TO USE EUROPEAN COLONIES’ RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPMENT

AFRICAN TERRITORY SINGLE!) OUT (Rec. 10.30) WASHINGTON, March 24. An expanded. programme to aid European recovery by unlocking the colonial resources of the Marshall plan countries was set in motion to-day. Mr Howard Bruce, Deputy Chief of the Economic Co-operation Administration announced that a Colonial Development Division had been established, headed by Dr Siah Bowman, a former President of the John Hopkins University of Baltimore. Mr Bruce said the organisation was designed to carry out a point in President Truman's inaugural address last January, which called for the development of backward areas with the aid of American industrial knowledge and private investment. He said the programme would seek to provide new sources of raw materials in Europe’s colonial territories —notably Africa and the Far East —as well as uncover badly-needed supplies of strategic materials, such as manganese, tin, iron ore and tungsten.

Mr Bruce also announced that the European Cooperation Administration was reducing its China staff, indicating a decline in the future prospects for continued recovery aid to China.