Play It Out

M. Henri Le Gay, the port director of Rouen, likes to climb the hill north of his city on clear days and look down on the port. Last summer he took some Americans to the top of his hill and told them that "without your aid, we could never have rebuilt this city."

The European Recovery Program --ERP-- has reconstructed Rouen and France and a large part of Western Europe. It has helped jump European industrial output 15 percent over pre-war levels; hiked farm production nearly as much. ERP officials say their aid has been our chief weapon against communism. Congress now has a bill extending the program for another year. It should be passed.

ERP has admittedly hit some snags. Its most important economic job is to supply dollars to Western Europe until Western Europe can produce enough to exchange goods for dollars. ERP's first two years halved this dollar shortage, but officials say that Western Europe is still five years away from becoming dollar self-sufficient. Part of the trouble is Western European reluctance to get rid of trade barriers; Paul Hoffman, ERP's head, is threatening to withhold part of his aid unless the ERP countries do something about freeing their own trade.

Another snag has been Western Europe's almost universal misconception about what the Marshall Plan is doing. U.S. propaganda efforts have been blocked by fretful governments and our own overcautious information officials. A recent poll in France showed that only 20 percent of the French people had any idea of how much aid they were getting from the U.S.

The way things look now, ERP aid may have to work on ten years past its original target date of 1952. Trade barriers and ineffective propaganda can slow things up even more. But M. Le Gay points out that "ERP has kept us our democracy--as long as things stay good, communism won't have a chance." We should prepare to face year after year of paying out, if we want to keep things good.