Australia USA Lend Lease

[Lang]

Mike

Just getting some figures together.

The indicators I am getting have more to do with commercial transactions from Australian companies involved in the war effort not official government treasury direct payments.

The thing I am trying to simplify is blurred because a great many of the Australian giants, particularly car and engineering companies, were either totally or largely US or British owned. Huge credits and debits were absorbed between subsidiaries. For example GM would send GMH a gearbox valued at X. GMH would sell the gearbox, in a vehicle, to the Australian Government at X + 20%. GM as the owner of GMH would receive the profit dividend (didn't stop just because there was a war on). The X would go to the capital investment they had in GMH which could be returned to them any time the company decided to declare an extraordinary dividend which happens often. All this outside LL and direct government treasury purchases.

Australian wool, previously banned in USA, was released for shipment and millions of pounds worth was shipped during WW2. The Liberty ships did not go back empty.

I still believe Australia got out of jail helped significantly by these commercial operations. Bear with me for some figures.

Lang