Clearing the Decks

What will happen at war's end to the vast amount of industrial equipment which the U.S. has Lend-Leased abroad? The United Kingdom gave a partial answer last week. She paid $31,500,000 to Leo Crowley's Foreign Economic Administration for the 58,000 machine tools which the U.S. has shipped Britain under Lend-Lease--the first nation to buy such material outright.

The tools Britain bought had originally cost the U.S. $166,000,000, but the deal was not quite the bargain for Britain that it seemed. To keep the bookkeeping record straight, FEA Boss Leo Crowley had thriftily included in his bill the cost of tools sunk in transit or later bombed out in Britain.

In addition, many of the tools would have little peacetime value, because they were either designed solely for war work or were all but worn out by round-the-clock production. Furthermore, Britain was barred by agreement from selling the tools abroad for at least five years after V-E day, thus protecting the U.S. machine-tool industry's export markets.

Nevertheless, Britain was pleased: the tool purchase cleared the decks for British reconversion. As long as the U.S. owned the tools, Britain could not shift them to making civilian goods, and Britons have worried lately that the U.S. would thus get the jump on them in postwar trade. With this obstacle out of the way, Britain promptly listed $12,000,000 worth of tools as surplus, so that makers of civilian goods could buy them.

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