Anglo-American Cooperation
EMMET, CHRISTOPHER
Anglo-American Cooperation The Moral Issues in the Negotiations With Britain By Christopher Emmet THE latest Gallup poll throws ¦ discouraging light on the difficulties whiel face the...
...Hut above all we need Britain's cooperation and stabilizing influence in the political sphere...
...only a few years, perhaps, before another depression in which to build an economy which will combine the good features of free enterprise and Socialism...
...Nor do they understand that the British request in Washington now for something more than a commercial loan ia also due to their de-toi ni i nation to avoid ever again promising a repayment which they could not fulfill...
...Besides this Britain suffered terrible devastation, especially daring the years she stood alone...
...Britain's unique role is especially evident in thie war...
...It was then, thanks to Britain's continued fight, that the great under ground movements were bom, with Britain's aid, which later did so much to bring Hitler down...
...The address of the orgsnization is 303 Fourth Avenue, Room Iii«, New York 10, ?. Y. • Harold J. Laski once asked Ernest Bevin, "Is there anything I can do for you...
...As it is, we will have almost too much power, almost too great a responsibility for so relatively young a nation as Amei kra...
...if its administration ia international, its importance I· us would be much lesa...
...Anglo-American Cooperation The Moral Issues in the Negotiations With Britain By Christopher Emmet THE latest Gallup poll throws ¦ discouraging light on the difficulties whiel face the Anglo-American economic negotiations...
...In such a world there will tie more than enough room both for the exports of Britain and of ourselves for the great industrial na tions of Germany and Japan will be out ? of the picture for a long time, and per haps forever...
...Because Britain was exposed to German air attacks, and because Britain had to import great quantities of raw materials for her production through submarine infested seas, British production became more restricted and specialized than ours after lend-lease...
...Without us they were spending over half their total national income while we Were at that time benefitting from a war boom, as we did also in World War I before we entered the conflict...
...On Kept...
...We were directly forced into World War II by the same aggression which had forced Britain into the war...
...there was a demonstration In Prague under the alogsn, "Trieste for Yugo-slsvia...
...After the last war, the war debt issue raised an ugly debate which poisoned the relations of the allied nations and helped to make the aggressions of Hitler possible...
...This, of course, Is strongly supported by Russia—for what benefits Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, benefit...
...It was mil that Britain was more unselfish than we, for it was the heigh' of wisdom for Churchill to put winning the war ahead of every consideration...
...Hut Bevin asked the impossible...
...V Pfc...
...while the fighter plane is useless except for militaiy purposes...
...As for the demand that the British should pledge that the money lie spent in this country, that too is unnecessary for what the British need are dollars which they want to spend here...
...We must act generously enough to achieve our objective of giving Britain a fair start, or else our whole policy will fail...
...There should also be arrangements in the fields of shipping, aviation and oil, whereby we agree not to take advantage of the temporary situation created by the war to prevent these vital British industries from getting back on their feet and getting a fair share of the market...
...Similarly the British, having a head Stall n\ the production of fighting planes due to the Battle of Britain, continued to specialize in those after lend;lease, while we built up the vast transport service and long range bombers which can be easily converted to peacetime use...
...They got in at the beginning and they •tuck it out to the end...
...He was one of the founders of the Committee to Defend America and of Freedom House, and was Chairman of the New York Committee to Aid Britain by Reciprocal Trade...
...That credit will now have to come from America...
...nevertheless Britain entered tlie war in 1939 to honor a pledge, not .simply to resist an attack, as was the case with Russia and with ourselves...
...Even with lend-lease aid the British got the worst end of the deal from the point of view of her postwar economy...
...in our attitude toward the British debt after the last war Americans also forgot that Britain had lent more to lie ? allies...
...They ito not understand that lend-lease was invented precisely in order to avoid creating debta which it would be impossible to repay...
...The greatest fallacy, however, in the American attitude toward the debts of World War I was the feeling that we had saved the allies and won the war for them as a favor to them, instead of as an act of American self-interest...
...The Yugoslav Ambassador to I'ragoe declared that if Yugoslavia gets Trieste, that port will be placed at the disposal of Czechoslovakia...
...We need their coopeiat ion and we can have it in the same partnership which worked •o well to win the war...
...One obvious fallacy about this American attitude, of course, was that our tariff policy made it impossible for the allies to pay then debts, a difficulty which is still with us today, although in less acute form...
...For 35 years, ever since her social revolution began in 1909...
...The Committee is asking friends to sdopt destitute auti Fascists and send them parcels...
...We have not yet the experience and the "know how'1 in dealing with foreign nations, either economically or politically, which the British have acquired...
...Herbert Hoover, Congressman teller and othera have suggested that we should only make any concessions to the British in the form of loans or grants in return for drastic concessions along various lines, from the ceding of bases to various other economic and political demands...
...The British Empire was held together partly by bonds of sentiment, but partly also by bonds of trade and financial credit...
...FOOD FOR ANTI-FASCISTS Till) papers have recently been full of pitiful stories about the sufferings of so-called displaced persons in Europa...
...Keep quiet...
...Desmond Ooss, conscientious objector who refused to kill for his country, received America's highest honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for self-abnegation, sacrifice, and courage in his chosen job as a medical aide on thr battlefield • Christopher Emmet is a commentator and political writer who conducts two radio programs over station WEVO...
...The vital thing is that we cannot afford to lie niggHidly...
...France, Italy and Russia -than she ic-eeived from us, and that she could not repay us because they could not repay her...
...The British request for a grant, or loan without interest, of between $3,-000,1)00,000 and 16,000,000,000 is really the minimum which the situation requires...
...Because of our ¦ Ize and wealth we are bound to lie the senior partner...
...Kassta...
...For the poll re-Teals that the majority of the American people have misunderstood the basis of lend-lease to Britain and disagree with President Truman's idea that we should not expert to be repaid This attitude is due partly to the old mjeundetstandings which led back to the controversy over the war debts after World War 1. Many Americans still feel that we were taken advantage of then and that we must not be suckers again...
...For whether or not we might have avoided war in 1917, we could not avoid war after Pearl Harbor...
...Of all the allied na-tiona the British have a special claim ia this regard in both world wars...
...They have been liberated only to starve and freeze...
...Naturally self-interest played a major part in the British treaty pledge to Poland...
...Yet of all the great powers Britain alone can claim the credit of having fought Hitler first, after Poland, and without bein attacked...
...Angelica HalibanolT is acting as chairman of the Committee...
...But rircum si.vn 's all along involved a relatively greater sacrifice for the British than for ourselves...
...By a ruthless policy of cutthroat competition before Britain can recover from the war we could probably supplant her, even in her Empire markets, regardless of Umpire preference...
...That debate was based on the widespread conviction that we had generously saved Britain and our other allies, and that they were ungrateful in not paying their debts to us...
...Kven since America entered the war the British contribution to the common war effort has been relatively much greater than appeared on the surface, diffused as it was over a dozen fronts...
...The Prague radio announced that Czechoslovakia supports Tile's < la una to Trieste...
...the British have been building a bridge between those economic systems...
...The shortsighted, selfish policy would be to refuse her a helping hand and to let her Sink to the level of a third-rate power...
...She is the one great remaining export competitor we have...
...And today very few Americans realize that on their war debt of over $4,000,000,000 to us, which was contracted at wartime prices, the British repaid us over $2,000,000,0(H) in spite of post wir deflation...
...Likewise, although BiitMin is far more dependent on her export tiade to survive in peace than we, she turned over markets which she bad supplied in South America, the dominions, ami the Near and Far East because wc were in a better position to produce and transport the goods...
...The minute that we admit that America had a selfish interest in the defeat of Germany, then we must also admit that the allies, who fought longer than we did, both in World War I and World War II, had placed as in their debt...
...And as for political demands —al though we have a right to use our economic power to prevent policies which threaten to sow the seeds of war, or to violate essential American rights, no such policies are practiced by the British government...
...but it would not lie in our interest to do so...
...W* have only a few years to build a world which will he safe from the atomic bomb...
...Although a collateral descendant of the Iriah patriot Robert Emmet, Christopher Emmet has been especially active in promoting Anglo-American cooperation against Nazi aggression...
...To secure relief for such victims of the Nazis, the International Solidarity Committee has been set up and has already started on a practical program of activity...
...Thus we produced the merchant ships, which are Britain's lifeline in peace as well as in war, while the British concentrated on building purely military craft for the Navy and for the invasion of France, which are useless to her after the war...
...RING the years when Britain fought...
...She is not only our natural ally but our best customer...
...Our interest lies in a stable, prosperous world, in a world where there is a growing standard of living...
...Bevin growled, "Yes...
...This again was through no fault of ours but was inherent in the circumstances...
...But the British have already promised of their own accord to under take certain economic policies which we desire if we make it possible for them to do so...
...But here again she will automatically suffer unjustly un-Jer-s we do something about it...
...For Britain herself buys more from us than all the rest of the Empire put together, and sells us less than she buys...
...a^LL these circumstances have now put Britain virtually in our economic power...
...while in the polll)-cal sphere the British Commonwealth has pioneered in the new gelds of international cooperation...
Vol. 28 • October 1945 • No. 41
