Lend-Lease Settlements

Report Outline
Tangible and Intangible Benefits of Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease Vs. War Debts
Congress and the Lend-Lease System
Present Scope of Lend-Lease Operations

Tangible and Intangible Benefits of Lend-Lease

Lend-Lease will round out its third year of service in defense of the United States on March 11, 1944. The original Lend-Lease Act, adopted nine months before the United States entered the war, has been extended by Congress to June 30 of this year. A further extension will be necessary at the present session of Congress and a further appropriation will later be requested by the President to finance lend-lease operations daring the fiscal year 1945.

The lend-lease program is subject to termination at any time by adoption of a concurrent resolution by the two houses of Congress “which declares that the powers conferred [upon the President] are no longer necessary to the defense of the United States.” While there is no thought of terminating the program while the war is still in progress, members of Congress have pressed increasingly during recent months for more detailed information on lend-lease operations and on plans for settlement of obligations outstanding at the close of the war.

Tangible and Intangible Benefits of Lend-Lease

At the beginning of 1944, Congress by successive measures had appropriated to the President roughly $25 billion for lend-lease expenditure and had authorized transfers from various departments of the government for lend-lease purposes to a total of $36 billion. Of the total funds made available, $18.6 billion had been expended up to November 30, 1943. Lend-lease aid in the form of war materials, industrial machinery and commodities, and foodstuffs amounted to $16.1 billion; services provided by the United States to others of the United Nations were valued at $2.5 billion.