LEND-LEASE AID

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25428, 8 January 1944, Page 6

LEND-LEASE AID

VITAL TRANSACTIONS COST TO UNITED STATES RUGBY Jan. 6. A wealth of detail about the vital United Nations war transactions is contained in the Jatest United States lend-lease report. The cost of lendlease 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 at the front or behind the lines. Lend-lease is an essential element of the United Nations’ strategy to win, principally with their own weapons. Their factories use principally their own raw material and equipment. Their peoples raise most of the food they eat, but lend-lease supplies have been essential to supplement their own resources. Aeroplanes, guns, raw material, 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 and other agricultural products 13 per cent, of the total.

An upward trend has been due In large part to the sharp rise in aircraft, ordnance, and other munitions transferred. Munitions were 61 per cent, for the first 11 months of 1943. Rental and charter of ships and ferrying ot aircraft were most important services, being over half the value of all services. Much of the balance consisted of training combat pilots, repair of 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. Some 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 lend-lease programme.

Supplies from Allies

In addition, the United States is receiving directly as reverse lend-lease without payment substantial supplies provided by the Allies within the limits of their material and financial resources Up to last June, the United Kingdom spent for reverse lend-lease to the United States 871,000,000 dollars, and New Zealand 51,000,000 dollars, India 57,000,000 dollars. Figures did not include supplies and services to United States forces in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, -and elsewhere. ~ , , Al _ Similar aid is being provided by the Belgians and French. The United Kingdom, New Zealand, and India also agreed to provide without payment the raw materials, commodities, and foodstuffs previously purchased by us in Southern Rhodesia and the Colonial Empire. Similar arrangements, states the report, are under negotiation with South Africa and Australia. British shipping to carry these supplies, which include such strategical materials as rubber, rope fibre, chrome, cocoa, tea, and oils is also under reverse lend-lease. The French have similarly undertaken to supply strategical materials for North Africa.

We are also receiving reverse aid as need arises, in China and the Soviet Union. Both had to strain their own man-power, 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. •Measure of Russia’s Aid The real measure of the aid we and the other United Nations have received from China is the six years and a-haif during which our indomitable ally has engaged large Japanese armies with ever-increasing losses to the Japanese. The real measure of the aid we and the other United Nations have received from the Soviet people is to be found in Stalingrad, Kharkov, Kiev, and in the 1,000,000 Nazi soldiers killed, wounded, or captured who will not be able to oppose our forces in Western Europe. And so it is with all our fighting allies—the British, whose forces fought a Mediterranean campaign considerably larger than our own; the French, who fought with us in Tunisia and are fighting now not only in Italy, but as an heroic army of underground resistance in France itself. The money cost of reverse-aid, great as it is, is no sure measure of the help we receive from our allies. The principal allies contributed fully in proportion to their resources. The total United. States war expenditure, including lend-lease. increased from one-third last year to one-half this year of the national income. The report continues that shipments to the Soviet Union have been over a quarter of the lend-lease exports to all countries. For the first 10 months of this year the shipments were 63 per cent, higher than for the whole of 1942. In October we sent the Soviet nearly 7000 planes—more than any other lend-lease country—over 3500 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 for the many wounded soldiers recuperating in hospitals, and we were able to send 33.400 tons. No butter has oeen scheduled for lend-lease export to any other country. The United States received as reverse lend-lease 8250 tons of butter from Australia and New Zealand for the Pacific 'forces. ’

We also sent to Russia 10,000 lons of seeds for 30 staple crops, 5,500,000 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. Lend-lease exports to the United Kingdom totalled nearly 6,000,000,000d01, 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, tanks and other motor vehicles. Industrial items have been 26 per cent., and foodstuffs and agricultural products the remaining 34. There has been a sharp increase in the exports of munitions to the United Kingdom. The value of tanks and parts sent this year has been over nine and a-half times of the combined total of 1941 and 1942. Although the food sent was only 10 per cent, of the British total requirements, it represented the difference between having and not having enough to carry on effectively the war effort. The foods have been mainly concentrated varieties. High food value is essential for the health of the armed forces and munition workers, but the exports must take up a minimum of shipping space. The British supplied our soldiers with fresh vegetables, flour, potatoes, cofcoa, tea, and foods grown in,Britain and the colonial empire.

Aid involved hundreds of special projects. After studies had 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 to increase production. Britisn cdal has 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 Britain jointly to facilitate the delivery of planes to Britain, the Middle East, and Russia. Lendlease funds were an important factor in building and equipping airports along routes, and constructing and maintaining repair and supply depots. The British, under reverse aid, built a great number of airfields for our forces. Britain, like the United States, spent several hundred million dollars on building in various parts of the

world airfields essential for the carrying on of the war. These are used by many of the United Nations. Supplies from the United States used in building or equipping airfields m the lands of the Allies were furnished under the Lend-lease Act. The Act provides that the benefit to the United States may be payment or repayment in kind or property or any other direct or indirect benefit the President deems satisfactory. Final determination oi the benefit is deferred until the extent of defence aid is known and the progress of events makes clear the final terms and conditions of the benefits, which will be in the mutual interests' of the United States and countries receiving aid. The equipment of airfields abroad will be fully taken into account fh the final summing-up for strategic and commercial purposes, which involves many other factors beside lend-lease. The final and complete answer can be found only through continuing successful collaboration between the United Nations in international commerce after the war and the development of a system of general military security in which the interests of the United States and other United Nations are fully protected.