Net Profit

Last week the Canadian Government declared its financial independence of the U.S. After a visit to Washington, Finance Minister James Lorimer Ilsley announced the end of financial arrangements under the famed "Hyde Park Declaration."

By that agreement, President Roosevelt in 1941 gave Canada's war industry a shot in the arm. He and his old friend & fellow Harvardman, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, initially arranged for the U.S. to buy $200 to $300 million-worth of war supplies in Canada. Prime purpose: to provide Canada with sorely needed U.S. dollars. It was a pre-Pearl Harbor device to help Britain and her Dominions "short of war."

After Pearl Harbor, U.S. dollars flooded into Canada for the Alcan Highway, airports, the Canol pipeline, huge purchases of grain, aluminum, etc. By early this year, Canada actually had so big a surplus of U.S. dollars that it had become embarrassing to the U.S. Administration. Canada also had her pride. Said Mr. Ilsley in the House of Commons last week: "We always felt that, as a nation , . . free from the ravages of war we were in duty bound to stand on our own feet and indeed to share with the U.S. in assisting other less fortunate of our Allies."

Canada used some of her Yankee-dollar surplus to reimburse the U.S. for all expenditures on airfields in the northwest, repay the full cost of a military telephone line from Edmonton to the Alaskan frontier. Some U.S. Army & Navy contracts in Canada will be canceled.

On balance, the deal showed a nice profit for Canada. The airfields were her own property, ready for use in the postwar air age. Technically, she was still under no obligation for Lend-Lease. And Canada was back on her own financial feet.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.