Aid for the Underdeveloped
By ANTHONY HARTLEY WHAT was once paradox is now platitude. The remark which Orwell threw off some- where or other to the effect that Western Socialists were hypocritical in advocating a higher working-class standard of living based on the cheap labour of Africans and Asians is now on every tongue—and not least on those of Western Socialists. In a recent Fabian pamphlet by Wayland and Elizabeth Young the theme of the underdeveloped countries and their needs is even converted into an argument against adver- tising: To permit the free operation of a whole in- dustry devoted to increasing consumption among the satisfied while others are still starving is against all humanity and decency. . . . If the answer to the vicious nonsense of advertising seemed to be a thumping tax, then the higher it was the more would Britain be able to sink in the capital development of poor countries. These are very laudable sentiments, and I quote them to illustrate to what extent aid to under- developed countries is now accepted as a moral imperative by liberal-minded people. However, they also illustrate something else: a certain insouciance about the actual processes by which refrigerators are to be beaten into ploughshares and those ploughshares then distributed to such as may be in need of them. There are, in fact, many advocates of aid to the underdeveloped, but comparatively few in-formed discussions of how that aid is to be distributed or from what sources it can be drawn. For this reason Andrew Shonfield's book The Attack on World Poverty (Chatto and Windus, 21s.) is most welcome.
There can be no question of the urgency of the problem. The gap in standards of living between modernised industrial countries and what M. Pierre Moussa has called, in a brilliant book 'The Proletarian Nations' is enormous and still growing (the income per head of an Indian and an American stood in a proportion of one to fifteen in 1938; in 1952 the proportion was one to thirty-five). Countries such as Algeria or Egypt, with populations reaching the point of demographic explosion and little land left to cultivate, face catastrophe unless they can be helped over the difficult industrial revolution which they must undergo to provide work and food for their people. To these natural difficulties must be added ones caused by the world con- juncture: underdeveloped countries are exporters of raw materials and food, and fluctuations in world commodity prices mean serious losses for their already diminished stocks of foreign cur- rency (in 1957-58 a drop in these prices cost them one and a half billion dollars—'not far short of the total sum of private capital' received by them). Moreover, it is a situation which everyone in the West should be concerned to remedy as quickly as possible, if not for humanitarian motives, then on grounds of self-interest. In a world where any area of political instability represents a general threat, the existence of the underdeveloped countries in their present state of poverty is a potential powder magazine which must be damped. From the particular Western point of view the undertaking of this task is also an attempt—probably the only attempt that can hope to succeed—to prevent African, Asian and Latin American countries turning to thAc nostrums offered them from Moscow an Peking. Mr. Shonfield's estimate of the underdeve1oPod countries' immediate requirements is betv,oen one and two billion dollars over and above what they are already getting. Supposing that this sign were made available, by whom should it be dis' tributed and to whom should it be given? The answer to the second part of the question seems fairly clear. Going by economic criteria ; there are only three countries which would at present qualify for large-scale investment India, Brazil and Mexico, all of which are 01 past the 'pre-investment' stage, i.e., the peril' during which technicians have to be trained. bureaucracies made efficient, pilot schen° started. The other underdeveloped countries are still in the throes of carrying out these essential preliminaries to full industrialisation. Mr. SW. field quite rightly insists that here the slogan l 'fair shares' has no application. The money be given to those who can use it. But this at once raises a difficulty. Who ca enforce a principle of selectivity based on Pr, economic fact? is it possible for any UN age° to make a choice which is bound to seem °I; vidious to those at the back of the queue? Give the democratic nature of the UN and the 01; fusion prevailing in much of its organisati01 (about which Mr. Shonfield has a good dead to say), it does not seem particularly well adaPie, for the administration of such a progranl The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund appear to be enslaved to an orthoa°, ; banking ethos; and the UN Special Fund, whic has shown that it knows how to handle ho problems of underdeveloped countries, owes of great deal of its success to the personality as its administrator, Mr. Paul Hoffman, and 11, not, in. fact, had very much money to plaY 0 ($26 million in 1958). ,i111 In these circumstances (taken together er the rich countries' prejudice against handing °v,„, large sums to the UN for investment in Affil THE SPECTATOR, DECEMBER 2, and Asia) it might seem that aid would be better channelled directly from nation to nation. But this method also comes up against the same ob- lection. The criteria which great powers adopt for helping others will be primarily political rather than economic. For instance, much American aid has been squandered in countries in Smith-East Asia because those countries were political allies of the US, and, though there may ee cases where the political and economic cri- teria coincide (India is an obvious one), there is bound to be much waste of resources which are badly needed elsewhere. Aid financed by in- dividual countries is also constantly meeting the Obstacle of the balance of payments. Here Mr. Shnnflold recommends 'tied loans' (loans granted °n condition they are spent in the donor's coun- try), but this only solves half the problem. What is needed is a more enlightened conception of political advantage on the part of Western governments; they must learn to lend money with the object of eliminating the problem of the underdeveloped countries rather than with at of winning an immediate political trick.
It is hard not to conclude after reading Mr. Shonfield that the UN and individual govern- rn,ents have scarcely begun to study these corn- Alex issues, let alone resolve them. The govern- ments take too narrow a view of their respon- sibilities, and the UN looks from the outside like an inextricable made of clashing inter- national agencies (the prize instance which he records of administrative muddle is the demar- eation dispute between the Technical Assistance otance which is in charge of river development and 'ground water,' and the Food and Agricul- ture Organisation, which is concerned with irrigatio). However, it would be unjust to end by dismissing the efforts that have been made, both nationally anSI internationally, to help the underdeveloped countries. As Mr. Shonfield Points out, the UN was never intended to handle problems of this kind, its primary function being the arbitration of political disputes. Its constitu- i°11 tran only be adapted with some difficulty t a situation which requires the initiative to be taken by its officials (this, indeed, is the ori gin of much of the trouble in the Congo). As for individual countries, it is hard to blame them for giving some thought to immediate Political interests in their allocation of aid.
It is the merit of Mr. Shonfield's book that it puts these choices fairly and squarely and with- °tit sentimentality. Too much of the debate on of countries is conducted in terms the little Chinese boy who would be glad, to eat up that pudding you've left, dear—a kind of moral blackmail which quite rightly alienates °therwise sympathetic listeners. Finding the _elneY (or rather, the resources, for mere money Meaningless in this context) is only the begin- ning of economic aid. What is essential is to give 1hthe right place at the right time. Otherwise nee Projects undertaken will end up like the 'ew hospital in Lima, which was supplied b the y ne Americans with the very latest in medical equipment and a landing-stage for helicopters tr° the roof. The hospital is used to only a action of its capacity, and the problem is to ceP the empty' spaces clean and decently Polished.'
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