See how it looked in 1940

Loan of Guns to Britain Is Proposed by President

Loan or lease would be for duration, return or replacement to be made in kind.

By Roscoe Drummond | Staff Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18

The dollar sign – even the billion dollar sign – will not be allowed to stand in the way of the fullest American aid to Great Britain.

Loans and credits will not be necessary. Revision of the Johnson Act and the Neutrality Law will not be requested.

Instead, President Roosevelt will take to Congress at the earliest date next month a new and unexpected plan by which all future British war orders will be taken over by the United States and the planes, ships and munitions will be loaned or leased to Britain under a “gentleman’s agreement” by which they will later be returned or replaced in kind.

The effect of this plan is that it envisages an almost complete amalgamation of war effort, outside of men, between the two halves of the English-speaking world.

Big Orders Await Plan

The British Government, it is learned authoritatively, is ready immediately to implement the President’s plan by placing additional war orders of $2,500,000,000 worth of supplies, a sum which would nearly double the orders already under contract.

These new contracts would be placed just as soon as the leased-for-the-duration-of-the-war program is made official American policy. They would represent a volume of war materials considered indispensable if Britain is to take the initiative in the fighting.

A bit ironically, it was today also that the British Government notified Washington that it could not pay the war debt instalment due Dec. 15. It is to eliminate any money debt growing out of the war that Mr. Roosevelt is advancing his new program.

The significance of the President’s novel proposal is that it assures Great Britain the uninterrupted, constantly mounting flow of vital – now perhaps decisive war supplies from the belt-line of American armament factories. Britain can order without delays and without doubts. Britain can be assured of its supplies without groping for credits or loans.

The special merit of this plan, as seen by the President, is that it enables the United States to make the fullest contribution to the cause of Britain’s survival without being drawn any further into the actual war than at the present time.

Hull Indorses Proposal

Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the first opportunity added his support to the President’s loan-lease plan to increase effective aid to Britain.

Secretary Hull said that this step was in line with the objective he has been advocating, that defense production of planes, ships and munitions must be speeded up until it is on a war basis. He did not believe that the proposed arrangement of getting supplies into British hands was basically barter commerce or that it went contrary to the principles of the reciprocal trade treaties.

Mr. Roosevelt unfolded his new aid-to-Britain program at his regular Friday afternoon press conference, his first since his return from the Caribbean defense inspection cruise, disclosed that this and other methods had been under consideration for several weeks, said that some new legislation would be needed to give it effect, and announced that he would seek that legislation shortly.

Full details of the plan are yet to be worked out, but as explained informally and at considerable length by the President it rests unequivocally on the proposition that the best immediate defense of the United States is the survival of Great Britain, that apart from any interest in preserving democracy in the world, it is in the self-interest of the United States to help the British Empire defend itself and that American armaments will be more useful if employed by Great Britain than if they were kept in storage here.

Spoke Without Notes

Throughout his long extemporaneous discussion with more than 200 correspondents – Mr. Roosevelt spoke without a note on his desk but apparently with great care and deliberation – there ran the evident conviction that the security of the United States is intimately related to the security of Britain, that, indeed, the President and the Administration is committed to securing a British victory with everything in their power.

President Roosevelt began his talk with the press by saying that in his judgment and in his experience no major war in all history has ever been lost through lack of money. He then mentioned several much-discussed, traditional and – to borrow a phrase from the conference – banal methods of enabling Great Britain to get the weapons of war essential for its defense.

He noted that some proposed repeal of the Johnson Act. He did not think it was called for. He observed that others proposed either the floating of a private loan or the extension of government credits. He did not favor either. He mentioned that still others – notably his wife and Alf M. Landon – favored outright gift of money to Britain. He doubted that the British would themselves care for this method. He concluded that all of these various steps might come up later but that he believed there was a more effective means at hand.

U.S. Benefited Indirectly

The President emphasized that in their present orders of several billion dollars’ worth of war materials Britain had tremendously aided American defense since they speeded expansion of productive capacity – an expansion which was the very essence of America’s greatest need.

Not once but several times during his conference, Mr. Roosevelt said that the thing to be done was to eliminate the dollar sign in attacking this problem of continuing to build up American productive capacity and in maintaining the flow of munitions to the shores of England. To achieve that end his plan takes shape in some detail as like this:

The United States will take over all future British war orders whether for airplanes, ships or ammunition, since the continuance of these orders is vital to American defense production and since the survival of Britain is vital to the security of the United States.

American manufacturers would have the guarantee of the United States Government, instead of a contract with the British Government, that they would receive payment for their products.

If, As and When Policy

These products will be made available to Britain on indefinite lease with the understanding that if unimpaired they will be returned, that if damaged, they will be restored, that if destroyed they will be replaced in kind.

This means that unlike the situation following the World War Great Britain would not owe a money debt to the United States but would be able to pay off its obligation in goods; namely, the same goods which it obtained from America.

As a simple illustration of the idea back of his proposal, the President offered the parable of the neighbor whose friend’s house next door has caught fire. If he has a length of garden hose which he can connect to his neighbor’s hydrant, he may be able to help put the fire out and thereby save his own home from destruction.

Such a man’s first act isn’t to look up his garden-tool bills, find that the hose cost him $15 and put it up to his neighbor if he can run into his burning house and produce that $15. He doesn’t want the money back after the fire is out; he wants the hose back, and if the hose gets smashed he wants his friend to get him another as soon as he can.