Money From America

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 370, 26 July 1946, Page 5

Money From America

T is disturbing that so many of the comments on the American loan have been grudging and plainly foolish. Even New Zealand correspondents haye gone out of their way to suggest that it was all | the same to London whether the loan went through or not — that no one was worried, and that many would have been relieved if Con-

gress had said No. It would be as sensible to say that a man who had been clinging to a tussock on a cliff-face for an hour or two had ceased to care whether he. was rescued or not. If it had been true that London no longer cared what Congress did the reason would

have been, not that Britain was big and brave but that Britain was worn out and spiritless. The biggest thing Britain has done since the war ended has been to accept all her difficulties fearlessly before the whole world; and the best thing that has been done to her has been the provision of this breathing space. Not to be grateful would be lunacy, and Britain has never beéh more sane. She knows pre-

cisely what this loan means-its obligations and also its risks; and it is romantic and dangerous nonsense to pretend that she would sooner not have taken the risks. It is like. arguing that a. man would sooner risk being burnt to death than slide down a fireman’s ladder to safety. The people of Britain are neither blind nor deaf nor panic-stricken nor paralysed. They know that the surest way to run into danger themselves, and drag America with them, is to keep the Atlantic unbridged. They also know the meaning of gratitudethat while it is important for New York to co-operate with London it is vital for London to co-operate with New York, and that the loan, for all its hard business implications, is one of the most generous gestures in the history of modern commerce. It is not building Britain up but dragging Britain down to encourage people to think that what happened last week in Washington is neither here nor there.