Evening star., 1943-08-03
By the Associated Press.

LONDON. Aug. 3.-Prime Min
lister Churchill told the House of
Commons today that President
Roosevelt has promised to turn
over to Britain between $50 and
200 American constructed ships
on which work already has
started.
A letter which the Prime Minis
ter read in the House explained
that the process of handing over
the ships would be spread over a
l0-month period,
Mr.. Churchill also disclosed that
the Canadian government was
making similar arrangements con-
corning ships built in Canada.
He told Commons this would abb
sorb the reserves of trained sea-
faring population and the resources
of both the United States and
Britain would be economically and
providentially applied to the main
purpose of the war"
Mr.. Churchills statement recalled
a recent Washington announcement
that some ships would be placed
under the British flag because of a
temporary shortage of ships crews
in the United States.
Mr.. Churchill said there was no
financial arrangement and that the
matter would be dealt with by the
usual method that things were used
to a common advantage.
The letter discloses that early in
the war it was decided for the
United States ito be the predomi-
nant cargo shipbuilding area for us
both. while your country was to
devote its facilities and resources
principally to the construction Of
combat vessels"
while this seemed to open a
question AS to whether Britain
was building warships for the
United States, officials in Wash
lngton said the release of
American merchant ships to
Britain involves no agreement
on the part of the British to
turn over combat vessels. In
fact, these authorities asserted.
such an agreement would be be-
side the point, which they de-
scribed as being an effective use
of available manpower. Brit
aims responsibility, it was said,
is to get ships manned with her
surplus seafaring population as
soon as possible and put them
into the service of the United
Nations.
(Any question of compensat-
ing the United States, authori-
ties indicated, will be Jumped
with other lease-lend affairs
marked for postwar settlement
between the countries.)
Following is the text of President
Roosevelt's letter as read by Mr..
Churchill:
White House, Washington. D. C.
Dear Mr.. Prime Minister:
When you were with us during
the latter part of December, 1941.
and the first few days of 1912, after
we had become active participants
IN the war, plans for a division of
responsibility between your country
and mine became generally fixed in
certain understandings.
In matters of production, as we'll
as in other matters, we agreed that
mutual advantages were to be
gained by concentrating, in so far
as 1t was practical, our energies in
doing those things which each of
us was best qualified to do.
Here IN this country in abundance
were the natural resources of criti-
cal materials.
Here there had been developed a
welding technique which enables us
to construct standard merchant
ships with a speed unequalled in the
history of merchant shipping.
Waste Of Materials and Time.
Here and there we had waiting
cargoes to be moved in ships to your
island and to other theaters. II your
country was to have carried out its
contemplated ship construction pro-
gram it would have been necessary
to move large tonnages of raw ma
terials that we have here across the
Atlantic to your mills and yards, and
then, in form of finished ships, to
send them back to our ports for the
cargo that was waiting to be car
riad