THE ECONOMICS OF ASSISTANCE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1941, Page 4

THE ECONOMICS OF ASSISTANCE.

yi r EIJ. as he has established and justified the policy of unrestricted material assistance to the nations which are lighting the totalitarian dictatorships in defence of human freedom, President Roosevelt has left in a slate of rather vague uncertainty the nature of the economic settlement ultimately to be reached between the I’nited States and the nations thus assisted. Xo complaint need be made on this score, for the total and common interests of democracy in the Western Hemisphere am! elsewhere so obviously demand a pooling of resources that the question of economic adjustment involved becomes one o! only secondary interest. It is certainly vital to ail the democracies that the democratic way of life should lie defended and upheld and this can only be accomplished ami assured, as Mr Roosevudt litis said, by the I’nited States supplying billions nt’ dollars Worth of war materials, if m-ed be, to nations m« longer .able io pay for them in ready cash. Soeoiidary as it is. the question of the ultimate economic .settlement lias its own importance ami interest and. M r Roosevelt himself admit ted cheerfully on a recent occasion, ideas on the subject as yet are far from being defined clearly. In his Message to Congress the President said For what we semi abroad we will be repaid within a leas able time after the vlm-e of hostilities. in ■ anihr materia!-: or, m our option, in other goods of many kind'; winch they c;m pt■ •diwan d which wo need. To what extent these broadly general observations emhmiy a practicable programme of economic settlement is perhaps open to dotibi. It is no,eworths’, hoW'-Ver. that .’dr Roosei<dt has excluded any question of a financial settlement as that is ordinarily understood. This, at least, is to the good, lor ail concerned may be expected to agree that there must In- iio repetition of the fiasco and disaster of the debt settlement that was attempted after the Great War. The ultimate return of war materials may have its attractions for nations which need th<-m at present in vino.illy unlimited (pin nt it les, but in a time to come will m-.-d them mm-h less. The general question of repayment hi good is hedged about, howt-wr. with considerable dol'ieuita-s. WL-n the time comes, the greatest difficnh;. nf all maj hr to get ■: I m’--d State-, to accept imports <■' goods b m .u;,-. • ;i,.stabilltv and prosperity <>■ its own industries Tip’s.* I'onsjdiH’.'l' mils, however, ill Ho alter' vita! com num niterest s will be served bv the I ’mt cd Sf at< ■■ sll i >pIVIII p a 11d Bri * a 111 mid other na'i•* 11 ■> ng, ' ■ pliim-s tanks, :■ His and other mater a ■ v. hi m ‘■e cal’l le>,| i.’J* to IC,oJ -