ECONOMICS: Good Lord Halifax

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For tartness in contemporary political verse, "Sagittarius" of the London New Statesman easily tops the world. Last week she wrote carols that British Members of Parliament and American Congressmen might suitably sing to each other. After the British sang their thanks for "a gift with strings a-dangling," the Americans were to reply with "Good Lord Halifax" (to the tune of Good-King Wenceslas).

Lend her gold and lend her goods, Much can be afforded, Christmas trees from Bretton Woods, She must be rewarded. . . .

Congress will make blessings sure, Britain's need relieving, Lend at interest to the poor, Giving—and receiving.

This was one of the most good-natured comments on the projected $4.4 billion U.S. loan to Britain—the deal nobody liked. Americans resented being called Shylocks for having made the loan at quasi-commercial terms. In England, the House of Lords accepted it even more bitterly than had the House of Commons (TIME, Dec. 24). Lord Woolton called it "degradation." The loan was linked to Bretton Woods* as twin shackles on Britain's economic freedom.

It was left to Lord Keynes, who had been the chief British negotiator, to answer critics on both sides of the water. His frank, factual speech made a deep impression. He said that he would regret all his life that the loan was not interest-free, but that America's "immeasurably remote public opinion" made this impossible. Even so, he emphasized the point that no comparable credit had ever before been extended in peacetime. The U.S. conditions, after all, were aimed "at the restoration of multilateral trade, which is a system upon which British commerce essentially depends." Lord Beaverbrook had argued that Britain could get along by trading in her own sterling area. Keynes's crushing comment: "I have never heard of statistics one-fiftieth part so phoney."