After Marshall'
The Marshall Plan was not made in a day, and it is most unlikely that any American economic policy to succeed it will come into existence without a great deal-of discussion. The report on foreign economic policy•by President Truman's special assistant Mr. Gordon Gray, which has now been published, and it is most probable that the further argument about it in the exposed forum of party politics will be much sharper than anything that occurred inside the President's office. What is more, since the field of the Marshall Plan was Western Europe only, whereas the new report seems to cover the whole world, the discussions of the next few months are going to be much more complicated than those of .1947-48. But at least President Truman himself has given a plain indication that he knows what he wants to do, and that he is not going to be deterred from trying to do it by the new difficulties created by the Republican successes at the Congressional elections. Far from assenting to the cessation of American aid to Europe in June, 1952, the new report advocates the provision of further aid " for another three, or four years beyond the present time " to help the expansion of Western European defence. It gives no countenance whatever to the idea that the European countries can carry this burden and at the same time cope with rising prices for imported raw materials and increased difficulty in selling exports. In the field' of assistance to under-developed areas the report is slightly less dashing and proposes that private investment should cover most of the task— a point on which American private investors may hold their own opinions. But still there are public funds in reserve.
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