Spending for Lending

As president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Eugene Black has lent $874,187,000 abroad. But the more he lent the more he became convinced that the free world needs U.S. lending less than U.S. spending. Last week, speaking to the Economic Club of New York, Black called for "a fundamental and lasting change" in U.S. tariff policy. Said he: "Clearly . . . the U.S. should open her markets to the free world . . . It is my belief that no other single factor could do as much in the long run to strengthen the world economy as an expansion in American imports."

Black thought that what is necessary is "a nationwide campaign . . . to demonstrate to the American people that an increase in imports would be a gain and not a loss to the country, and that they themselves [stand] to benefit from it. [The nation needs] a new and liberal attitude toward imports, and not merely a reluctant acquiescence in specific tariff reductions. After all, every dollar that leaves the U.S. must sooner or later find its way back . . . What is required is not that the American economy should lose its self-sufficiency but that it should be willing to become a little less self-sufficient than it is."

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