LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Eire and 0.E.E.C.
SIR,—I should like to make one comment on the article by Mr. Rawle Knox which appeared in the Spectator of November 4th on my proposals to the 0.E.E.C. for a world economic conference. Mr. Knox rightly includes among the points which I wished to have discussed at such a conference the development by an investment programme of the world's under-developed areas in order to provide markets for European and American " surplus" production. He suggests, however, that I have in mind the inclusion of Ireland as an undeveloped area which would receive investment under such a scheme, and he quotes in support of this a recent lecture in which I stressed the fact that Ireland suffers from pro- longed under-investment. His inference is not correct. It is true that Ireland does suffer from under-investment and is relatively undeveloped compared with other European countries. She could not, however, in the global sense, be described as "an under-developed area." The sort of areas I had in mind, and which, I think, are envisaged by President Truman's Fourth Point, are regions like Africa and India with vast and
relatively unexplored potentialities. Ireland would, of course, benefit from such a plan, but only in the same way as other European countries, i.e., in the degree to which the plan tended towards the restoration of convertibility of European currencies and to the provision of markets for
Previous page
