The Daily Alaska empire., 1944-11-15
Price Tags
(Washington Post)

It isn't generally considered quite the thing to leave price tag present. And when the present is like lend-ease, in the form of an exchange Of goods and services for mutual assistance in winning
 war any itemization of benefits given or received is more likely to be an irritant than an aid. We started the practice here We insisted that the President report Congress every 90 days the precise value in dollars of all the equipment and supplies loaned or leased to Allies to make them more effective in fighting our enemies. It didn't matter that the dollar valuation next to meaningless or that the transfers were made exclusively to nations whose defense was essential to the defense Of the United States Even after got actively into the war ourselves went right on treating these transfers as gratuties
 So it is not surprising though it is equally silly, that the British should undertake itemizaton of the goods and services which they have given to us through reverse lend-lease. As have pointed out many times before, recognize that this assistance has been magnificent in volume and indispensable to the effectiveness of combined war effort But we cannot escape a feeling of impatience when we find it painstakingly computed as it has been in release just received from the British Ministry Of Information.
 over 5000 special trains" the release
 commences, were lent to United States
 forces from British railways in preparation
 for the invasion of France Nearly 50 million
 pounds ($2 900 00) worth of new buildings
 alone were built from Britains tight reserve
 of manpower and materials. An average of 40-
 
 with 560oO workers absorbed at the peak
 period in January, 1943 These latest figures
 on British army reverse lend-lease to the
 United States ground forces, made public to-
 night by the Ministry of Production in London,
 shows how intensely Anglo American invasion
 needs encroached British civilian life"
 We'll, these figures mildly interesting and have use, perhaps, as a reminder to Americans that end-lease flows two ways. But how much of "Britain's tight of manpower, we wonder was consumed in making this tabulaton. It is some thing of statistical feat to figure out the number of men employed in the construction of buildings in- tended exclusively for American use-a feat which scarcely seems worth the labor it entails. For later on, perhaps, these buildings will be put to use by the British themselves and no one will be able to figure out then what portion of their value in man. hours should properly be aocated to reciprocal aid As for a monetary valuation of such things the corder of General Purchasing Board in England once testified to the House Ways and Means Com mittee that "our Engineer Corps estimated that ap- proximately half a division would be engaged in valung reciprocal aid received if accurate records to be maintained"
 What sense is there in this sort of bookkeeping? Lend-lease and reciprocal lend-lease both vital parts of a vast system of mutual aid which has implemented coalition warfare against the Axis. They cannot be measured at all in any case, in relation to the total contribution which each member of the coalition has made to the defeat of the enemy. And if get to comparing contribu- tions, we shall longer have much of coalition. As Eward R. Stettnius, Jr, put it in his book on lend-lease, 'it would be impossible, indeed sacrege to attempt to balance such a ledger"