LEND-LEASE AID

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1944, Page 3

LEND-LEASE AID

FORMING APPFJ3CIABLE PART OF TOTAL UNITED STATES; WAR OUTLAY. CONTRIBUTION BY BRITAIN AND EMPIRE. ! (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.45 a.m.) RUGBY', January 6. A wealth of detail about vital United Nations war transactions is contained in the latest United States Lend-Lease report. The cost of aid from March, 1941, to the end of November, 1943, was 13.5 per cent, of all the United States war expenditure. i The report states: “American food is helping to maintain the rations of the Soviet Army, British soldiers and war workers, and others on the front or behind the lines. Lend-Lease is an essential element of the United .Nations’ strategy, to win principally with their own weapons and their own factories and to use principally their own raw material and equipment Their peoples raise most of the food they eat, but lend-lease supplies havebeen an essential supplement to their own resources. Aeroplanes, guns, raw materials, food and other goods transferred were 7 per cent, of the total aid to date. Transfers of finished munitions were 73 per cent, of the total. Industrial items were 21 per cent, and foodstuffs and other agricultural products 13 per cent, of the total. The upward trend has been due in a large part to a sharp rise in aircraft, ordnance and other munitions transferred. Munitions were 6T per cent, in the first eleven months of 1943. The rental and charter of ships and ferrying aircraft were the most important services, being over half the value of all services. Much of the balance consisted of training combat' pilots, repairs to warships and merchantmen, asembly 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 and 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. In addition, the United Slates 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 had speiit for revferse; lend-lease to the United States, 871 million dollars. New Zealand .51 million dollars, and India 57 million dollars. The figures did not include supplies and services to the United States forces in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and elsewhere. Similar aid is being provided by the Belgians and French. The United Kingdom, New Zealand and India also agreed to provide, without payment, raw materials. commodities and foodstuffs previously purchased by us in Southern Rhodesia and the Colonial Empire.'’