What America Expects

Northern Advocate, 8 September 1947, Page 4

What America Expects

“The Administration’s time schedule on the Marshall Plan will have to be stepped up drastically to get aid to Europe before the end of 1947.” said the acting director of the State Department’s office of international policy (Mr Paul H. Nitze) in a broadcast tonight. “Many European countries, including Britain, France and Italy, are hanging on the ropes,” he added. “The situation will be serious if these countries are not able to import food and coal during the coming winter. Anything can happen.” Mr Nitze did not say that a special session of Congress would be necessary, but pointed out that Congress would have to act before any largescale aid could be given to Europe. Mr Nitze gave a six-point summary of what the United States Government expects from the final 16-nation report on European reconstruction from Paris. He said:—

“(1) We expect Europe to make an all-out effort in increasing its production of food, coal and raw materials. “(2) We expect them to tell us not only what each country can produce for itself, but also what it can produce to help other European countries. “(3) We expect them to have a plan that will stabilise their money. “(4) We expect some plan that will enable them to distribute among one another their surplus production before asking for assistance. This means

among other things a plan to do away with the black market. “(5) We want to see the freest possible flow of goods between the countries of Europe.

“(6) We expect a plan that will after the initial few years make Europe selfsupporting. There will be no further extraordinary help from us. They will buy from us what they need, paying for it as they go.” Mr Nitze nevertheless stressed that the United States could not afford not to do all that it could. “From the moral point of view we cannot allow people to starve or let countries sink into anarchy simply because they do not have enough dollars to pay for reconstruction materials,” he said.

“From the economic point of view it is not good business to allow an enormous production plant to go to ruin simply for want of recapitalisation. From a political point of view we cannot allow dictatorship of the Right or Left to sweep the world for want of help which we may be in a position to give. “On all counts it would be far more expensive in the end for us to withhold help than to give it.” The Foreign Ministers of the IS countries preparing the report on European reconstruction will visit Paris on September 15 to give it a flourishing send-off, says the Observer’s correspondent in Paris. The British Foreign Secretary (Mr Bevin) will preside.