Lend-Lease Position

Northern Advocate, 10 April 1943, Page 4

Lend-Lease Position

(Special.) AUCKLAND, Friday. The complexities of wartime trading and the Lend-Lease position were referred to by the retiring president (Mr. J. F. Johnston) at the annual meeting of the Bureau of Importers yesterday. He said that even tire Lend-Lease administrators did not try to justify all requiremcnls, but said that if American aid was wauled, all the rules laid down would have lo be accepted. Control of production in llie States was under the direction of the War Production Board and limited supplies had to he balanced against the unlimited demands of the war programme. Mr. Roosevelt had stated that it was his declared intention lo avoid repetition of the international debt experience, and they would not seek a settlement by payment in gold or goods, which had proved, in the past, an (.insurmountable burden to the trade of the world. On such terms there would be no hope of revival of trade, on which all post-war plans must rest if the promise of peace was to be fulfilled.

A large volume ol' the production and trade owing to nations had to be restored and sustained. It was necessary that trade should be solidly founded on stable exchange relationships and liberal principles of commerce. Lend-Lease settlements would rest on a specific and detailed programme for achieving those ends.

Mr. Gainer Jackson said that they had to be prepaid to face difficulties during the war and they had to be prepared to accept a certain amount of control to win the war and peace. It was decided to inquire from Mr. Nash whether New Zealand was included among the countries with which it had been reported that the United States were negotiating trade agreements.