The Big Pool

Like two giants groping through a fog, the U.S. and Great Britain struggled haltingly toward solution of a vast and embarrassing problem last week.

What is Lend-Lease? Is it a one-way charity through which the U.S. has bailed out the British Empire? Are its books the record of a war debt? Can they ever be balanced without the suspicions and recriminations that followed World War I? These questions could no longer be ignored.

On the U.S. side of the Atlantic, suspicions had grown steadily. And since Administration statements stressed the out flow, and soft-pedaled British "Lend-Lease in reverse," the suspicions had a base. Further, every time rationing twisted the screw again, anti-British propagandists got a new audience for their claim that Lend-Lease has been a giant British steal.

In Britain there was a rising feeling that it was about time to put the facts on the record. As far back as early summer, the British Government wanted to issue a White Paper, to prove to its own citizens and the world that Lend-Lease was a two-way street whose busy traffic had only been hinted at. The White Paper was ready for publication last August. But the U.S. Government, notably timorous Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr.. talked the British out of it. Some of the Administration objections were technical. and sound; but the main objection to endorsing such a statement was a political fear of seeming too pro-British.

Grey Paper. Last week a revised version of the White Paper, written by stiff, hard-collared Sir John Anderson, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was finally released in London. At the same time, Franklin Roosevelt made a full report to Congress on the extent of Britain's reverse Lend-Lease. Both documents were soggy with timidity, nervous with embarrassment, befogged with evasions.

The world did not get the whole truth about Lend-Lease. But at least one fact was established: Lend-Lease is a two-way street. Chief points:

> Up to the end of June, the U.S. had received from the United Kingdom $871,000,000 of Lend-Lease in food and supplies on which a dollars-&-cents value could be placed. From Australia, New Zealand and India it had received another $300,000,000. (For the same period American aid to Great Britain totaled $4,458,000,000.)

> The chief forms of British aid have been construction of new barracks and hospitals for U.S. troops ($124,000,000), airports ($220,000,000), shipping ($168,000,000).

> Much of the material supplied by Britain to U.S. troops in the war theaters was strategic items whose real military value could hardly be measured in cash--e.g., heated flying suits which enabled U.S. bomber crews to carry on at high altitudes, a superior gun sight, aerial photography equipment.

> Australia gave U.S. troops its full production of some food items, turned over some of its best new hospitals, provided free transportation.

> New Zealand supplied so much clothing to U.S. soldiers that she was forced to ration civilians to less than one full outfit per year.

> Thus the full value of British reverse Lend-Lease may never be known. British aid to U.S. troops consists of millions of large & small transfers made right on the battlefield or at the bomber base, things immeasurable in cash.

Black & White. Left unsaid, or only hinted at, were the really important facts about Lend-Lease. One fact, which the British would never mention officially and the U.S. Government hesitates to place squarely on the record, is that Lend-Lease bought the U.S. time and an ally without which World War II might have been lost. Before the Lend-Lease program began in March 1941, Britain had spent over $3,000,000,000 for U.S. supplies, and had liquidated nearly all her U.S. investments to help pay for them.

Without its experience in working on British munitions orders, and later on Lend-Lease orders, U.S. industry could never have achieved its present enormous arms output so quickly. Nor would U.S. munitions be so good as they are: the Flying Fortress and Sherman tank developed from British use of U.S. designs, before Pearl Harbor.

Since Pearl Harbor, Lend-Lease has been less a system of loans than a full pooling of assets. On the record, Britain's contributions will always look smaller than America's--the British have less industrial capacity. And the difference in prices and manufacturing costs makes British contributions in dollars & cents look smaller than they actually are.

The Other Yardstick. Money is a poor measuring rod in Lend-Lease. Example: If the U.S. sends an airplane to be operated and perhaps lost over Germany with a British crew, this is Lend-Lease; if the plane takes an American crew to its death, no Lend-Lease is involved.

The plain truth is that no Briton need feel apologetic, and no American self-righteous, over Lend-Lease balances, whatever they show. Britain has strained her resources to the utmost to win the war, has slashed her foreign-credit balances from $14 billion to $4 billion, has run her factories and railroads ragged, has seen one of every five English homes damaged in the blitz.

The facts about Lend-Lease were best expressed last week by Lieut. Colonel Kenneth Collins, procurement officer for all U.S. Air Forces units in Britain. Said he: "In 13 months I've bought more than 317,000 ship tons of all sorts of supplies for the Air Forces and I've spent only 800 bucks in American money. ... I haven't the vaguest idea what those supplies were worth, how much they cost or why. All I know is: we needed them, I asked the British for them and we got them."

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