DOMINIONS WERE KEPT INFORMED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 300, 20 December 1945, Page 5

DOMINIONS WERE KEPT INFORMED

Recd. 6 p.m. London, Dec. 18. Dr. Dalton, in the House of Commons, replying to a question, said the Dominions’ Governments had been kept informed of the progress of negotiations on the United States loan both through their representatives in Washington and through personal contacts in London. No Government of the British Commonwealth or any member of the sterling group had suggested that they should have approached the United States as a group. NEED OF LOAN. Dealing with Britain’s need for the loan, Lord Jowitt asked how, if the country was desperately concerned to make ends meet, it could hope to play the part of a great Power in the world. “Hoyv could we hope to look the United States and Russia in the face?” he asked. “We might have to content ourselves with sinking to the role of a second class Power.”

Lord Jowitt said he was strongly influenced by the fact that a collapse of the agreement would bang the door on the first attempt at international co-operation.

Lord Beaverbrook said: “In a division against these proposals we will perhaps be defeated, because the Government have the bankers on their side. It is a new phase to have the Socialists’ bankers united against us. I don’t criticise the Americans for the terms of the loan, which are reasonable, but I criticise the strings they tied to it. I don’t criticise the Americans for wishing to imnose the gold standard on us; they have nearly all the gold in the world, and naturally wish us to come in and help them make that gold good in exchange in the world. They naturally want us to introduce the standard to Empire countries.” DOMINIONS’ DEBT. Lord Beaverbrook stated that the assertion that Britain had been driven to borrow from Washington was based on Britain’s adverse balance of trade, which was estimated to amount in 1946 to £750,000,000. “Of this adverse balance, only £300,000,000 is represented by trade with the United States,” he said. “We in the past nine months in the United States have spent at the rate of £24,000,000 yearly on four things—tobacco, films, cotton and oil.” Lord Beaverbrook then went on to show that this could be reduced by relying on or own resources. He declared that after making allowance for sterling balances held in London, the Dominions were in debt to Britain. This was not generally known.

“We are told that the Dominions will abandon the sterling bloc and join the dollar group,” he adhed. “Why should they? We are the Dominions’ great export market. Australia and I New Zealand are satisfied with the 1 present situation.” Lord Beaverbrook said his complaint 1 against supporters of the loan was i that they had put Imperial preference ;on the counter. “You offered it for ‘ sale,” he said. “Your price isn’t an I elimination of tariffs, but a reduction ' of tariffs.”

Lora Beaverbrook emphasised that the sterling bloc throughout the war contributed a greater measure of financial help to Britain than did the United States, even including leaselend. Lord Addison said that Lord Beaverbrook’s figures were addled. He had so far checked two sets of figures quoted by him and they were both grotesquely incorrect. There were 150 peers in the Chamber when the vote was taken resulting in adoption of the agreement by 90 votes to 8.