Posted on 11/20/2004 7:12:40 AM PST by Valin
Britain had to pay through the nose for its military equipment and other supplies from America prior to the US joining the war and the Lend-lease agreement carried some nasty "small print":
IN ONE OF HIS FAMOUS SPEECHES Churchill asked America 'Give us the tools and we will finish the job'. But America wouldn't 'give' anything without payment. After two years of war, Roosevelt had drained Britain dry, stripping her of all her assets in the USA, including real estate and property. The British owned Viscose Company, worth £125 million was liquidated, Britain receiving only £87 million. Britain's £1,924 million investments in Canada were sold off to pay for raw materials bought in the United States. To make sure that Roosevelt got his money, he dispatched the American cruiser, 'Louisville ' to the South African naval base of Simonstown to pick up forty two million Pounds worth of British gold, Britain's last negotiable asset, to help pay for American guns and ammunition!. Not content with stripping Britain of her gold and assets, in return for 50 old destroyers, he demanded that Britain transfer all her scientific and technological secrets to the USA. Also, he demanded leases on the islands of Newfoundland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Bermuda for the setting up of American military and naval bases in case Britain should fall. (Of the 50 lend lease destroyers supplied to Britain, 9 were lost during the war)
QUOTE. Lord Beaverbrook was later to exclaim 'The Japanese are our relentless enemies, and the Americans our un-relenting creditors'.
A quote from Harold Wilson's Memoirs: 1916-1964 (1986):
Lend-Lease also involved Britain's surrender of her rights and royalties in a series of British technological achievements. Although the British performance in industrial techniques in the inter-war years had been marked by a period of more general decline, the achievements of our scientists and technologists had equalled the most remarkable eras of British inventive greatness. Radar, antibiotics, jet aircraft and British advances in nuclear research had created an industrial revolution all over the developed world. Under Lend-Lease, these inventions were surrendered as part of the inter-Allied war effort, free of any royalty or other payments from the United States. Had Churchill been able to insist on adequate royalties for these inventions, both our wartime and our post-war balance of payments would have been very different.
The Attlee Government had to face the consequences of this surrender of our technological patrimony, but there was worse to come. Congress had voted Lend-Lease until the end of the war with Germany and Japan and no longer. When the European war ended, most people expected the conflict with Japan to last for another year or so. The atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima ended that assumption. Almost within the hour, President Truman, unwillingly no doubt, but without any choice in the matter, notified Attlee that Lend-Lease was being cut off. At that time it was worth £2,000 million a year. There was no possible means of increasing our exports to the United States to earn that sort of sum. Britain was in pawn, at the very time that Attlee was fighting to exert some influence on the postwar European settlement. The only solution was to negotiate a huge American loan, the repayment and servicing of which placed a burden on Britain's balance of payments right into the twenty-first century. (This was the Marshall Plan).
A quote from Anthony Eden's Memoirs: The Reckoning (1965):
Mr. Churchill was continually pressing them to further efforts. He asked, among other things, for the loan of fifty or sixty destroyers, and this scheme was discussed between London and Washington.
The negotiations did not go smoothly, nor did I altogether approve of the details of the final settlement. At one time the suggestion was put forward in Washington that the entire British West Indies should be handed over for the cancellation of our war debts. I thought this less than friendly bargaining. At another, the destroyers were to be exchanged for a public assurance that the British fleet would sail to North American waters if Hitler gained control of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister rightly protested that such an announcement would have a 'disastrous effect' on British morale. The West Indian bases alone were certainly worth more than fifty or sixty old destroyers.
The sweeping nature of the first American demands caused some delay in the negotiations. Local patriotism in the West Indies was justifiably affronted. By August 14th, however, the agreement was settled, to be ratified at the beginning of the following month. Our desperate straits alone could justify its terms. The age and condition of the fifty destroyers made unexpectedly large demands upon our dockyards. Only nine ships were available before the end of 1940, by which time our own naval construction was catching up on our losses.
By the way, the Marshall plan, (which Britian has paid back), was only extended to Britain after the British government agreed to give all the British Empire's Uranium ore supplies to the USA, which substantially slowed down the production of the first British Atomic bomb. That bomb wasn't tested until October the 3rd, 1952 at Monte Bello Islands, Australia. If Britain hadn't provided the USA with its Uranium ore stocks after WWII then its first A-bomb would have been ready by the time the Soviets got theirs in 1949.
As for spitting in your face, Britain has stood alongside the USA in Iraq and throughout the Cold War.
Do you remember posting this? - You were right. 8^)
Thanks for the reminder.
The changing demographics and the politically correctness of the Eurotrash nations are like vice grips closing in on these fools.
Mark Steyn and others have addressed their dismal and near future in recent weeks. Just look at what has happened to Denmark because a few political cartoonists dared to portray the Islamofascists in their true light.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.