ECONOMICS: Unfrozen

Last summer the U.S., like a rather heavy uncle, felt obliged to stop Britain’s spending money. Washington froze the last $400 million on the 1946 loan (all that was left of the original $3,750 million) because the British had not been able to keep sterling freely convertible. Last week Washington unfroze the $400 million.

The U.S. action acknowledged that the straitened British would have to keep their reimposed exchange controls awhile. In an exchange of letters between London and Washington, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps promised to lift currency controls “at the earliest possible time.” (Few observers expect this time to arrive in the next two years.) U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snyder told Sir Stafford that the $400 million would help Britain “to maintain its present austerity program.”

The $400 million, of course, would not last long. Washington merely hoped that it would help keep Britain afloat for two or three months while the Marshall Plan was being thrashed out.