LOANS TO BRITAIN A GOOD BUSINESS DEAL

Chronicle (Levin), 16 March 1946, Page 5

LOANS TO BRITAIN A GOOD BUSINESS DEAL

" 1 greater freedom of world TRADE. Received Friday 7.15 p.m. LONDON, March 15. Mr. Herbert Morrison, Lord President of the Council, in a speech at the Overseas Empire Correspondents' Association limcheon, said: "Our internal problem is our own affair. We are making pretty good progress at it. We in addition have to give effect to the policy I decided on hy the electorate of national- ) ising certain key services and indus j fcries. This task is also our own affair. We ask no help from anybody else for it. We shall use no money that any body gives us for it. We will finance it ourselves. "If we were a self-containing community we would have nothing to worrv ■ about, hut we are an island with no natural resources apart from coal, with a large population which lives hy indus try and by trade. We did not go to Wasbington and Ottawa to borrow money so that we might have an easy time. The United Kingdom and the sterling area represent one of the rnost iinportant gears in international trade. If that gear jammed the world 's trade would he restricted and limping. Thus fchere is a direct interest for the United States and Canada in giving us temporary assistance. ' '

aMr. Morrison said if a country which had to import on Britain 's scale had to provide f oreign 1 exchange for the pay ment of the war debt it could do so only hy curtailing imports. Canada recognised that with new money Britain had to finance purchases for the next two or three years both for herself and the sterling area. She also recognised fchat Britain ought not to he cut too fine for assistance. The Canadian and Ameriean Agreements taken together would enable Britain when they were ratified to accept obligations from the co'nvertibility of sterling — obligations which were in Britain 's interest as well as that of a large part of the world— -and also face the future of British policy which was directed to the expansion of world trade with greater freedom from present anxieties. Both agreements were business deals broadly conceived and handled by both sides with courage