Evening star., 1943-11-07
Australia Asks u. ),
To Supply Workers
For Military Forces
BY GEORGE WELLER,
War Correspondent of The Star a
Chicago Daily News.

CANBERRA, Nov. 6-American
and Australian officials are now
engaged in re-negotiating their
leaSe-lend agreement. Since Aus
tralia now has a climbing dollar
surplus as result of the rising
tide of money which has come to
all of Australia in the salaries of
free-spendlng Americans, the Lease
Lend Commission has suggested
cash payment for some lease-lend
goods
Australia, on the other hand, has
asked the United States to send
over American civilian workers to
relieve Australian civilians working
for United States forces in Aus
tralia. The idea is to release the
Australian civilians for work in
their own homeland's secondary in
dustries which are suffering from
a manpoWer- shortage.
When lease-lend was first un-
dertaken on formal basis IA
months ago, Australia S dollars were
low because American forces here
then principally Navy and Air
Force-Were too few for personal
expenditures to compensate for the
scarcity of dollars in the common
Wealth'S treasury. The scarcity was
due to an unfayorable trade bal
ance due to the fact Australia was
importing more from the United
States than it sold to Americans.
Business Now FlOurishes.
Now this whole trade balance
matter has moved inside Australia.
whose American customers are no
longer at the far end of the Pacific,
but right in its shops and cabarets.
Elghly-paid American flyers often
spend more than 5000 in less than
a weeks leave in Sydney. Our deep
rear areas, in close proximity to
Australian cities, keep the tide of
dollars constantly high. These dol
lars are banked heavily by all busi-
ness proprietors.
Australia has had the experience
of increasing its American trade
beyond anything that any overseas
u 61NAC 1OblNl cNNplIIl
and furthermore of having overseas
customers come unwooed in thou
sands of the doors of business eStab-
hshments. And buyers pay any
price for anything.
In terms of the commemorative
dollar balance, Australia begins to
take position something like Ire
land, Germany, Italy and Greece
before the war when immigrant re-
mittances from the United States
boosted their invisible income"
sources.
Nobody knows how much the Amer
leans are pouring out in personal
expenditures in Australia One
Sydney newspaper calls the amounts
huge" But these funds, piling up
in the commemorative treasury
apparently have drawn attention to
the Lease-Lend Commission which
has suggested that Australia may
now be in a position to pay cash for
some goods from the United States
instead of receiving everything
under lease-lend.
Tobacco is now off the lease-lend
list and if the Australians are will
ing, other items may also be paid
for from Australias climbing dollar
surplus.
Island Is ManpOwer Poor.
Australia, though dollar rich, is
manpoWer poor. It's labor govern
ment is industrially minded. But
many workers who might as union
members have been employed in
secondary industry have been work
ing for United States forces in &C
tivities peripheraI to war,
Australia has now proposed that
these workers, who are estimated
at $4,000, should be replaced by
Americans. It suggests that civilian
workers should be sent from the
United States in order to make it
possible for the Australians to re-
turn to their former status in union
organized INDUSTRY. Australian Off
cials are quoted as suggesting that
under this plan foodstuff production
could be increased greatly.
These negotiations are apparently
In the opening stages, but they in
woke the old question of Australia's
underpOpulation. What the immi-
grafton status of American civilians
working here for the United States
forces would be is not clear. To
bring such a large number of Amer
lean civilians across the Pacific
would be a tremendous undertake
ing in cost and effort. American
Office workers earn about 80 per cent
more than Australians and would
be unwilling to 20 overseas for less.
While the renaSCCnCe OF Aus
tralian industry in which the gov
ernment is VitallY interested would
doubtless be aided thereby, the
question may also be raised whether
an influx Of highly paid American
workers would not ag2ravate the
inflationary problems already Gre
ated by personal expenditures of
American forces outside leaSe-lend
and by AUstralia's own intensive
wartime industria!ization.
Up to July Australia in 10 months
had supplied American forces
$4,000 600 in goods, civilian sal
aries, rentals, etc, and received
SAT- 100000 in United States lease
lend
(CopyrIght, 1943, by Chicago Daily News,
Ins)