RETROSPECTIVE LEND-LEASE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 226, 24 September 1945, Page 5

RETROSPECTIVE LEND-LEASE

PROPOSAL LIKELY TO HELP BRITAIN Recd. 6 p.m. London, Sept. 21. The Parliamentary corerspondefit of “The Times” says a proposal under which America would make LendLease supplies retrospective to cover a period equivalent to that in which Britain, after the fall of France sustained the fight against Germany alone, has occurred to some people in both countries as worthy of examination and more may yet be heard of it The late President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act in March, 1941, after Britain had struggled on alone for nine months, but the doors of the arsenal of democracy did not really swing open until December, 1941. When Pearl Harbour was bombed nobody would care to estimate, in commercial terms, the value of this unaided service to the common cause, but Britain might well regard the arrangement under which’ Lend-Lease was made reciprocal for an equivalent period as a happy solution. It would enable Britain to get through the difficult period of adaptation without restriction of imports to the extent of causing undue hardship.