The Yangtze Valley Authority

A year and a half ago Vice President Henry Wallace suggested that one major postwar project should be an international Tennessee Valley Authority. Other logical dreamers became more specific, talked of a DVA for the Danube, a YVA for the Yangtze, an AVA for the Amazon.

All would bring power, transport, irrigation and prosperity to industrially back ward areas.

The International Labor Office assigned British Political Scientist Herman Finer to make a thorough assay of these dreams.

Last week the ILO published his scholarly, technical survey, The TVA: Lessons for International Application (288 pages; $2).

Finer's conclusion: TVAs abroad would probably equal the demonstrably colossal success of the TVA at home.

To make his point, Finer gives a complete picture of the planning, financing, building and administration of TVA, plus its dividends to the Tennessee Valley people in a higher standard of living. The cost would be an obstacle to poor nations (ten-year TVA cost: $700 million), but Finer suggests that an international agency could finance sound, carefully planned projects. Then dams along the Yangtze would one day mean electricity for the lamps of China.

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