Makes Strong Attack On Speech By Halifax

Northern Advocate, 1 December 1944, Page 4

Makes Strong Attack On Speech By Halifax

LONDON, November 30

A strong attack on a speech recently made to bankers at Chicago by the British Ambassador to Washington (Lord Halifax), is made by the “Daily Mail” in an editorial captioned “How not to be a diplomat.” Lord Halifax, says the “Daily Mail,” is reported to have said: “Shortly after the liberation of France, a rumour went round the United Kingdom that American businessmen who had commissions in the United States Army, were flocking to Paris to reopen their* offices and start booking orders before anyone else could get there.

“The story was unfounded. It was denied by Mr Eden in the House of Commons and finally scotched by General Eisenhower’s statement that there was nothing in the report. Then it has been whispered in Britain that your traders have not been slow to take advantage of Britain’s ‘ export White Paper’ to obtain a flying start from British competitors. Latin America, for example—so the suggestion goes—was formerly supplied by the United Kingdom, but your traders are recommended to do this because the British are prohibited by the terms of the White Paper from exporting anything containing LendLease materials or materials similar to them.

Read With Dismay

“Even if this White Paper policy should lapse, it will be a long time after hostilities cease before Britain is able to satisfy Latin-America.” The “Daily Mail” says British people will read this speech with dismay. It adds: “We assert without hesitation that Lord Halifax, in the course of a few ’diplomatic remarks’ designed to flatter his hosts, has done incalculable harm to Britain’s postwar trade. He was guilty in this speech of the type of defeatism which, if generally adopted by the leaders of this country, could bring us back only to the agonies of the unemployment we knew so well in the years between the two wars.” Remarkable Concession

The “Daily Mail” denies that Mr Eden ever gave a straight denial to the charges of American carpet-bag-ging in France, and adds: “So far as we are aware, General Eisenhower, at no time, ever made any personal statement about this matter. He did better. He issued a strong directive to the forces under his command forbidding this practice which has since been openly admitted by United States senators, congressmen and businessmen, and by American newspapers.

Lord Halifax appears to accept with astonishing complacency the White Paper position under which the British are ‘ prohibited from exporting anything containing Lend-Lease materials, or materials similar _to them.’ The stress is on ’materials similar to them,’ and these words represent one of the most remarkable concessions ever made by one country to another. They have killed much of what little export trade was left to Britain after her tremendous sacrifices in what we always assumed to be a common cause.

“Lord Halifax says to Latin-Amer-ica in so many words: ‘ When you are placing your orders abroad in the post-war years, you may leave Bx’itain out of account. Give your orders to the United States. Britain could not handle them even if she would.’ ”