Tide into Torrent

Lend-Lease is not a loan of money. Nor has it even been an act of charity. [It] was undertaken for the defense of this country and has been carried out in the interests of the U.S. people.

So said silver-haired Lend-Lease Administrator Edward R. Stettinius Jr. this week as he submitted to Congress the first fully documented overall report on Lend-Lease operations. In the 21 months since its beginning in March 1941, the report showed, the total value of Lend-Lease expenditures in goods and services to 30 of the United Nations was $8,233,000,000--or 13% of total U.S. war expenditures. The stream of goods to the U.S. Allies had increased month by month until October 1942, when it dropped off--presumably because of the U.S. offensive in North Africa.

Some salient points:

> One out of every three tanks and combat planes manufactured in the U.S. in 1942 has been shipped to United Nations allies, either under Lend-Lease or through foreign purchases.

> Russia, the country fighting the biggest United Nations battle, has received the biggest amount of the kind of aid that counts. Up to Jan. 1, 1943 the U.S. sent the U.S.S.R. 2,600 planes, 3,200 tanks, 81,000 jeeps, trucks and other military vehicles.

The four biggest customers were:

United British Kingdom Territories U.S.S.R. China

(in millions of dollars)

Military Items $1,172 $1,421 $912 $105

Industrial Materials 916 369 247 21

Agricultural Products 1,093 71 102

Services Rendered 780 532 271 30

Reciprocity. The report was obviously submitted in anticipation of a searching Congressional inquiry of Lend-Lease agreements--which must be renewed next June--and Administrator Stettinius took considerable pains to show that Lend-Lease works both ways. Said he:

> From May to November last year the U.S. received from Britain alone supplies which would have taken 1,200,000 tons of shipping to send from the U.S. to England. Included were 38,000,000 lb. of food for U.S. troops in the United Kingdom, vast quantities of clothing, and mountains of military supplies: parachutes, bombs, shells, barbed wire, several score complete field hospitals.

> U.S. troops in the Southwest Pacific have received more than 100,000,000 lb. of food from Australia and New Zealand; almost no food is now shipped from the U.S. to South Pacific war theaters.

> Virtually all Lend-Lease money is spent in the U.S., being paid to farmers raising Lend-Lease food, to factory workers making Lend-Lease supplies. Examples: $50 millions in Lend-Lease were used to expand Ford tank and engine factories.

Looking at the critical year to come, Administrator Stettinius said the most pressing Lend-Lease problem for 1943 would be delivery of food to Russia, where "millions are threatened with starvation." He conceded that until now only a small part of the weapons used against the Axis had been of American make; he promised that in 1943 the tide of planes and tanks would turn into a torrent.

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