A GIFT TO BRITAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26641, 11 December 1947, Page 10

A GIFT TO BRITAIN

Sir. —Few people seem to realise the desperate nature of Britain’s plight. What she is suffering is not a mere temporary inconvenience, likely to be over in a year or so At the best she must endure many years of scarcity, short rations, and hard work—at the worst she is facing wholesale starvation and decimation by disease. Last year she was £600,000,000 short of making ends meet, and incurred additional debt for this amount; not internal debt, but debt to the dominions and foreign countries. To pay her way she is now called upon to make an incredible effort. Her imports of food and raw materials are being reduced by £20,000.000 per month, and she must increase her exports by £30,000,000 per month. That she should do this seems beyond the bounds of possibility, but unless she does her rations must be still further reduced Should she by great efforts succeed in this task, she will be just able to buy sufficient food to maintain her present scale of living—she will then be required to make a superhuman effort to further increase her exports, in order to begin to reduce the mountain of overseas debt A whole generation of austere living and desperately hard work cannot restore to Britain her pre-war position and standards of living. She bankrupted herself to win the war and save the world from slavery. Compared with Britain, New Zealand looks like a war profiteer. We have abundance of food, and our overseas debt has actually been reduced out of our war profits. Our housing difficulties are trifling compared with Britain’s problems. We suffered no loss of houses by enemy action, while Britain had millions of houses wholly or partially destroyed. To remit even £100,000,000 of our sterling credit, in addition to sending every possible ton of food, would be only a just acknowledgment of the incalculable debt we owe to Britain. Such a gift would hearten and encourage our fellow Britons in the long and weary struggle wlvcii they have to face. It might perhaps encourage other dominions to do likewise.— I am, etc., James Begg.