LEASE-LEND RATIO

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 259, 31 July 1942, Page 5

LEASE-LEND RATIO

Current American Limit OUTPUT ACHIEVEMENT AND NEED (By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Received July 30, 8.15 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 29. The Office of War Information, reviewing the lend-lease programme, disclosed that one out of every eight planes and tanks produced here has been shipped to other members of the United Nations, while the lend-lease shipments of other materials average under 12 per cent, of the total production. From the start of the lend-lease programme the United States has shipped more than 5000 million dollars of lend-lease goods, including 818,000,000 dollars’ worth of machinery, metals, and oil, and also 841,000,000 dollars’ worth of agricultural products to the Allies. The total lend-lease during June was 708,000,000 dollars, which is twice as much as during last December. The statement concludes: “It is obvious that the Allies have not received from us as much as they need. Whether we have sent as much as we should is a question involving very high problems of global strategy.” Cargo Planes Difficulty. Mr. Harold Talbot, director of air transportation for the War Production Board, told the Senate Defence Investigating Committee that a shortage of engines of sufficient horse-power prevents a quick change-over to the production of giant cargo and troopcarrying planes and that any greater shift to that end would be at the expense of bombers and some fighters, which require engines of great horsepower. However, cargo- and troop-carrying planes were in production in the United States, and therefore this phase had not been neglected, ho said. Mr. Talbot declared that the steel shortage was so acute that every plane engine scheduled for delivery in 1943 was already allocated to a particular plane. The principal bottleneck was steel. Acting to build up the reserve stocks, the War Production Board has ordered all deliveries of fuel oil for heating and air conditioning to be ceased in the eastern seaboard States between August 3 and September 15. Representatives of the Navy Department and the unions signed an agreement ending the threat to strike of 22,000 building trade workers of the American Federation of Labour employed on 100,000,000-dollar naval projects in the metropolitan area.