I N broad outline the European Recovery Programme is nothing more or less than a commitment on the part of the United States to supply dollars to Western Europe in an amount which, roughly speaking, equals the balance of payments deficit of Western Europe with the rest of the world. It is true that there is a commitment only for one year, and that the programme must be reviewed by Congress in each of the four years for which it is hoped the plan will operate. I think it is fair to say, however, that apart from legal obligations, there is an understanding on the part of the United States that the programme shall go on for four years. On the other hand, the plan is not a one-sided bargain. Certain definite commitments are undertaken by the participating countries. Those commitments are set out in two documents, the Report of the Committee on European Economic Co-operation of September I947 and the Convention of European Economic Co-operation of April I948. These documents were executed by the participating countries before the final enactment of the American legislation and appropriations. The plan, therefore, is not a contractual relationship; it is a partnership relation in which the common bond is the determination to save Western society. I think that the general terms 'self-help' and 'mutual help' serve to describe the share of the work which the participating countries have assumed. Self-help is a rather dull subject, at any rate so far as the United Kingdom is concerned, because the obvious fact is that the United Kingdom is helping itself, and from the point of view of my mission there is hardly any problem at all. The first condition of self-help is political stability within the country concerned. That may not strike British people as being very important, because political stability is rather taken for granted, but such is not the position in other countries. When it is remembered that this programme will work only if the leading countries in Western Europe can succeed in self-help, we must look with some dismay at the situation which prevails in some of those countries. The next condition is internal fiscal stability. There again, this is a rather dull, if painful, subject to the United Kingdom, because she has fiscal stability: for the first time in recent years there is a projected budget surplus for the current fiscal year. The United Kingdom is carrying out a policy of full employment, a policy of holding down home consumption, and a policy of controlling inflationary forces in order to divert maximum energies to her very difficult export programme.