Recovery in Europe
The second interim report of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation falls into two sections, and it is to be hoped that the two chief political parties in this country will resist the temptation of quoting one or other of them for their own ends. On the one hand European recovery generally has far exceeded the original estimates ; on the other no return to normal—i.e., to pre-war--conditions can be expected till several years after the Marshall Aid programme has expired. After 1952 restrictions on exchange and trade will still be necessary. Marshall Aid, moreover, from now on diminishes in value annually. That was always intended, and so far as intra-European trade is concerned the help available will satisfy the need. Industrial and agricultural develop- ment may have to proceed more slowly, but, as stated, it has already proceeded beyond expectation. But the problem of the dollar-gap remains, a fact that should be impressed on those speakers in this country who talk blithely as though an " over-all " trade balance were sufficient. Nothing except a dollar-balance will in fact suffice, and that, so far, is not in sight. Two years of Marshall Aid are left, and during them dollars must be a prime consideration. As the report most rightly insists, to save dollars by cutting imports ruth- lessly would be disastrous. What is needed is to expand trade by increasing exports. Yet that can only be done if the United States will let exports in, and her tariff barriers, though lower than they were, are in some cases still prohibitive. And apart from that, as the report observes, such obstacles as the Quarantine Act and the " Buy American " movement• have also to be surmounted. The O.E.E.C., it must be remembered, is a European organisation, and its report will have to be considered at the American end by the Economic Co-operation Administration. That body's administrator, Mr. Hoffman, has very rightly emphasised, among other necessities, the importance of the closer integration of a Western Europe in which the inclusion of Western Germany is indispensable.
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