HALT RECOMMENDED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26637, 6 December 1947, Page 7

HALT RECOMMENDED

AID TO FRANCE AND ITALY EVENT OF COMMUNIST SUCCESSION Rec. 9.30 p.m. WASHINGTON, Dec. 4. The Acting Secretary of State, Mr Robert Lovett, said to-day that he would recommend to President Truman that the United States halt aid to Italy and France if they turned Communist. Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee, he agreed that “ Communists were now making a tremendous drive” in these countries, but claimed that the Bill contained adequate provisions by which the President could immediately halt the flow of supplies if circumstances changed. He gave this assurance as the House of Representatives began the debate on the Bill, which has already received overwhelming approval in the Senate. The Senate voted 597,000,000 dollars (for France, Ifaly and Austria, but the House Foreign Affairs Committee had reduced this *to 590,000,000 dollars, 60,000,000 dollars of which would go to China. . , In Ottawa to-day Mr Mackenzie King indicated that he thought Canada had done all she could to assist Western Europe’s rehabilitation, and that further aid would be up to the United States. “What we can do for Europe depends upon the position we are in ourselves,” he said on returning from a visit to Britain and Europe. “Canada has done more than any other country in the world for our size, and now are experiencing difficulty in doing the > things we would like to do,” he added. If the situation in Western Europe was. not remedied : soon, it would-be difficult to say what might happen, but. whatever did happen, it would affect all countries. The United States and other countries in the western hemisphere should do their utmost to put Europe back on its .economic feet, he concluded.