MARSHALL AID TO EUROPE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 112, 24 February 1950, Page 3

MARSHALL AID TO EUROPE

PLEA FOR EXTENSION MR HARRIMAN ADDRESSES HOUSE COMMITTEE (N.Z.P. A.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, Feb. 22. Mr Averell Harriman, the roving Marshall Plan Ambassador, to-day credited the Marshall Plan with “blocking the Communist drive to take over elected governments and trade unions in W'etsern Europe.” *’ t ' He said that elections in Western Europe had shown a decline of Communist influence in)‘ governments. Communism had suffered the most notable setback in the trade union movement, which it had sought to control. Mr Harriman appealed to the House Foreign Affairs Committee not to cut the Marshall Plan funds. Heavy cuts, he said, would mean a shift from recovery to mere relief, leading to gains by Communists. He said that a continued flow of : American aid was vital. “Cuts in food and feed imports would reduce living standards and farm outputs,” he said. “A fateful downward spiral would be started, and Europe would again be faced with hunger, chaos and despair, in which Communism breeds,” Mr Paul Hoffman, the Marshall Plan administrator, said to-day that fears of ecoonmic damage to American industries through increased European exports to the United States were greatly exaggerated. Mr Hoffman suggested three ways in which to offset any possible damage to American industries. These were: (1) The extension of the present unemployment compensation to cover American workers who lost , their jobs; (2) a job-training programme to enable workers to take up a new trade; (3) a management-train-ing programme to help industries to convert to other products.