The U.S. on the Spot

Barbara Ward is quite a girl. At 34, she is foreign editor of London's soberly brilliant Economist, one of the five governors of the British Broadcasting Corp., and one of Britain's most influential journalists. Last week she was introduced to the U.S. reading public with the publication of her latest book--her first in the U.S.--entitled The West at Bay (Norton; $3.50). Young Miss Ward, a slender, attractive woman who once wanted to become an opera singer, has a great deal to say to the U.S. Her book is an intelligent guide to the world of 1948.

Mr. Smith Is Bankrupt. She starts with the charge that Western Europe's bankruptcy is generally underestimated. "One would not say, 'There is very little wrong with Mr. Smith except that he is bankrupt and his children are starving.' "

Europe's bankruptcy was caused not merely by World War II but by a far more profound historic change. Miss Ward calls it the end of the 19th Century. That vanished age was essentially a British age. Britannia's vessels ruled the waves, and Britannia's notions of free trade ruled markets and minds. Britannia's notions of the balance of power kept the world in a rough & ready sort of peace. That order came to an end with the 20th Century's world wars, colonial rebellions, and (above all) the rise of U.S. power. Gone, suddenly, were the balances of yesteryear.

When Britain was the leading industrial power it was also the great market for food and raw materials, and by virtue of this position in the vortex of world trade, the great exchange clearinghouse. The U.S., which replaced Britain in world power, was no clearinghouse; it consistently sold more abroad than it bought. Western Europe, no longer able to produce enough for its own needs, had to buy more & more from the U.S. and had fewer & fewer dollars to do it with. Unchecked, this imbalance will reduce Western Europe to poverty and Communism.

The West at Bay might as well be called The U.S. on the Spot. For Miss Ward perceives correctly that it is up to the U.S., as Britain's successor, to redress the world's balance

Mr. Wallace Is Rebuked. In her analysis of whether the U.S. is capable of doing so, Miss Ward takes up the major arguments which the Communists, Henry Wallace and his opposite numbers in Europe use against the U.S. Will there be a depression in the U.S.? Says Miss Ward: maybe. There are few present signs that a depression is imminent but there are also few signs that the U.S. has learned how to master the bust & boom cycle. Will the U.S. return to isolationism and leave Europe in the lurch? Says Miss Ward: definitely not. Is the U.S. imperialist? Says Miss Ward: nonsense.

Miss Ward considers the Marshall Plan a magnificent and unprecedented gesture of statesmanship and generosity. But she points out that even if it succeeds to the full extent of its blueprint, it will be unable to remedy the basic imbalance (she thinks that by 1951 Western Europe will still buy $13 billion worth more goods than it can sell in the U.S.). The long-range cure, and the long-range bulwark against Communism, must be a supreme European effort toward Western Union.

Wanted: Marriage. By shaping itself into one economic area and pooling its major resources, she thinks, Western Europe could repeat the U.S.'s wartime feat of doubling its industrial output.

Miss Ward admits the resistance to be expected from European nations, but she thinks it can be overcome. "The decision to begin resembles, in a sense, the decision to marry," writes Spinster Ward. "No foresight, no careful preparation can ensure in advance the success of the venture."

Miss Ward, for one, has faith that the West will at least try to meet the challenge. "The last ray of the old sun has been extinguished, and if we of the Western world can do nothing but look backward, then 'we are for the dark.' "

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