10

THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL

[JUNE

tourist expenditure nearer home in Canada, Mexico and the WestIndies may be substantial.

An important item to complete the balance-sheet of currentreceipts and expenditure still remains for examination—namely,the growth of income from the new foreign loans now in prospect.We start off with an estimate of net receipts of $300 million at theend of 1945 in respect of interest and dividend receipts.* It is theprospective increase in this item which looks most alarming to theoutsider, and it is therefore particularly important to clear ourminds about its possible order of magnitude in relation to theother figures in the balance-sheet.

An estimate of American commitments, actual and prospec-tive, up to date has been given in the January Bank Letter ofthe National City Bank of New York as follows :—

Table IX

$ million.

U.S. subscription to the International Monetary Fund . . . 2,750

Ditto to the International Bank ...... 3,175

Authorised lending power of the Export-Import Bank . . . 3,500

Proposed British credit—new money ...... 3,750

Ditto for Lend-Lease settlement, etc. ..... 650

Credit for Lend-Lease settlement with France .... 575

Ditto with Russia ......... 400

First contribution to U.N.R.R.A........ 1,350

Second proposed contribution ....... 1,350

17,500

This table is, of course, a very imperfect guide to the finalsituation. But it may help to give us a clue to the orders ofmagnitude involved. In the first place, this table covers onlythose commitments already approved by Congress or recom-mended to Congress by the Administration. In this respect,therefore, the total of the ultimate commitment is presumablyunder-estimated. In particular it may be noted that in a messageto Congress on March 1, 1946, President Truman endorsed therecommendation of the National Advisory Council on InternationalMonetary and Financial Problems that the lending authority ofthe Export-Import Bank be increased by $1-25 billion. Inthe second place, on the other hand, it looks some way ahead.It assumes, for example, that the whole of the American subscrip-tion to the Bretton Woods Fund has been drawn upon. It also

* That this is a positive, and not a negative, figure, in spite of U.S. being anet debtor on capital account, is explained by the large amount of her externalliabilities held at short-term at a very low rate of interest. It follows that thisfigure will be increased correspondingly less when foreign countries begin to drawon their dollar balances.