The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1946-07-24
That 1t Means
THE BRITISH LOAN
BY SIGRID ARNE
APP NeWSfeatIlres

WASHlNIIGIN.-- II he u. -. Qe-
cision to lend Great Britain 3d.
$50, 100000 will mean more bust,
ness here-as it was intended to
do.
b Four sections of the United
States are likely to feel the shot.
in the-arm first, judging from the
initial British government an
nouneements of the manner in
which the loan will be used. Here
they are:
/. and 2.-California Oregon
and Minnesota-where the can
ned food industry is concentrated.
The British government has
promised its people little more
food-not much, but more. A
good deal of it will be canned
food, and much of that will be
canned fruit, since the British are
fruit hungry. Through the war,
for six long years, they had
neither the ships nor the money
to waste on such luxury. The few
fruits that got to Britain became
so Enthusiastically expensive that a
single pear would bring $3.50.
Textile Machinery
3.--New England where the.
textile machinery industry is con-
centrated. Textiles were one of
Great ,Britain's biggest, pre-war
sellers abroad, For generations.
English ginghams, pereales and
chintzes have been the delight. of
women the world over. But
bombs damaged a lot of the ma
chinery, and much of the rest
wore out on war jobs, or became
antiquated. The British plan TO
permit the use of a good chunk
of the u. S. loan to modernize
their textile industry. They're
banking on it to help pay their
way out of their huge war debt,
and the new American loan. 4
4. The Chicago-Columbus4
Pittsburgh factories-where coal
mining machinery is made. Brit
ain also made much money by
the sale of coal to other countries.
Now her mines need repairs and
the government says a second
good chunk of the loan will be
spent fixing them up.
To Move Slowly
It's estimated only some $780,
100000 of the loan will be spent
this year. BY 1861 the British
must have used the whole
amount. That year, also, the. 2
percent interest payments begin,
and they continue for SO years, or
until 2001.
BY that time the British hope
their foreign sales will be large
enough both to pay for goods to
meet their current needs. and also
to begin to pay off their debts.
Here's the way the British gov
eminent plans to dole out the
American loan
Any British importer who
wants to buy in the United
States must explain his purchase
to the Board of Trade. If the
board decides either (a) that the
purchase is something the British
should have, even under their
'austerity living" program, or (b)
that the commodity is needed to
make some British export more
saleable. the goNErnment will APP
prove the idea. The importer will
get American dollars to pay for
his purchases here.
Initiation Worries
Because of the many, expenses
facing the British government to-
day, there is marked worry in
London, as in many capitals, over
American price infIa ton. 1t
makes the dollars they are Dor
rowing worth less, because they
or buy less.
There is a Bureau of Labor Sta
tistics figure which illustrates
British worries: it averages out
the price increases during the
past year on. % basic commodities
(such as wheat and cotton). In
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