I

THE TREATY OF PEACE

67

America ’s contribution for some time aftershe came into the war was mainly financial,because she was not yet ready to help in anyother way. So long as America was sendingmaterials and munitions to be used by Alliedsoldiers, she charged us for them, and thesecharges are the origin of what we now owe her.But when later on she sent men too, to use themunitions themselves, then we were chargednothing. Evidently there is not much logic ina system which causes us to owe money toAmerica , not because she was able to help usso much, but because at first she was able tohelp us, so far at least as man power wasconcerned, so little.

This does not mean that the financial helpwhich America gave us was not of the mostextraordinary value to us. By the time thatAmerica came into the war our own resourcesas a lender were literally at an end. We werestill at that time just about able to finance; ourselves, but we had reached a point when we

could no longer finance our Allies as well.' America’ s financial assistance was therefore

: quite invaluable. From the moment she

1 entered the war she undertook to lend what-

r ever was required for the expenditure of our-

’ selves and our Allies in the United States ,

t including some contribution to support the

; Foreign Exchanges. But she was not pre-

> pared to make loans for use outside America .

, Great Britain had therefore to go on making

loans to her Allies for such expenditure—

1. 1 a i-

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