Word: britain
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Backbone. As the conference approached, the U.S. press sat up and took notice. It was natural that most U.S. papers, from the polite New York Times to the loud-roaring Hearst press, should pointedly recall the $3.75 billion U.S. loan to Britain, which the British had long since run through, and more than a billion dollars worth of ECAid, which had kept the British going so far. It was also natural that the press of a capitalist, free-enterprising democracy should blame Britain's Socialist government and its works (e.g., nationalization of coal and railroads, the billion-dollar...
...have given British readers a close view of their plight, which they appeared never to have gotten so clearly from their own press or their government. Britons who, when they got the U.S. loan, complained that U.S. prices were too high (and would cut down the amount of goods Britain would be able to buy in the U.S.) now cried that U.S. prices were too low; British manufacturers could not compete with them. Other Laborite headlines: "Stop the Sneers," "Warning to Americans," "They Are Slinging Mud at Britain." Tory Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express had its own summary...
...Revolution of Sorts. At the bottom of the crisis was a by now familiar phenomenon-the yawning "dollar gap," i.e., the fact that Britain, like most of the rest of the world, spends more dollars than it earns in the U.S. The British have tried to meet the situation by more production, increased exports, by cutting dollar expenditures, and rigging bilateral trade deals with nondollar countries. The chief trouble (in U.S. eyes) is that the British are poor salesmen, do not adapt their products to what is wanted in the U.S. and have prices which are far too high...
Washington believes there is only one way out for Britain-she must scrap her restrictive bilateral trade policies, produce more cheaply, and compete for all she is worth. That would mean a revolution of sorts in British industry and a sharp reduction in some of Labor's pet projects. It would also require efficient redeployment of British workers to industries where they are needed most; that would cause temporary unemployment. The hard fact is that Britain cannot whip herself into trim competitive shape without at least temporarily lowering her standard of living...
...would be harsh medicine, but U.S. policymakers will do their best to make Britain agree to swallow...