I am glad to have the approbation of the hon. Member. They think that Socialism will not work, and that the dollar shortage is due to this Government. I take it that is the view of the hon. Member for Stone? No reply. One can always find something if one goes to the works and speeches of the right hon. Member for Woodford. I am one of those who have a considerable admiration for the Leader of the Opposition, and I read his works and buy his works. I only wish that all members of the Tory Party would read his works, and particularly the first volume of his "History of the War," because I believe that no intelligent man of integrity can read that book and still remain a member of the Conservative Party, so damning is their record in the years between the wars.

What does the right hon. Member for Woodford say about the dollar crisis in that book? If we turn to page 491, we find that he says that we entered the war with £4,500 million in dollars or gold, or in securities, and that by November, 1940, we had reached the point where, unless something were done, we might have had to give in because of the dollar shortage. We had disposed of all the marketable securities we possessed; we had got rid of all our gold reserves and the additional gold that we received from South Africa. In his book the right hon. Gentleman reprints a letter he wrote to the President of the United States putting the facts before him and making it plain that, from an economic point of view, this country was flat on its back, and that surrender was staring us in the face. Therefore, for hon. Members opposite to blame the Government for the dollar shortage is nothing more than bare-faced hypocrisy or—I am charitable—the most flagrant stupidity. That is what I always think about the Tory—that he is stupid and not a knave.

It is very important that the fact of our position at that time should be driven home. What a great thing it would be if hon. Members opposite would only tell their constituents that the dollar position in this country arises directly from the fact that for 16 months we fought on with no hope of relief, and that it was only the great generosity and the great wisdom of the President of the United States which enabled us to carry on. I want to pursue this theme a little further because it seems to me to be very important and to go right to the heart of our difficulties.

I was greatly impressed by some correspondence which appeared in "The Times" in August, 1947. I do not wish to steal another man's ideas without acknowledgement, and therefore I will give the name of the writer of the letter. He was a Mr. J. L. Gibson who, I have also discovered, wrote other very able letters on the dollar shortage in August, 1945. He pointed out that it was a principle laid down by Mr. Roosevelt that the economic burden of the war should be borne equally by all countries. He quoted Mr. Roosevelt as saying that each country should devote roughly the same fraction of its national productions to war so that the financial burden of war is distributed equally among the United Nations in accordance with their ability to pay. Mr. Gibson argued on the basis of figures which he claimed to be authentic, but which I have been unable to check, that this country had borne a very much greater burden than it should have done. He assessed the total income for the United Kingdom for 1939–45 at £47,719 million. He pointed out that our due, on the basis of the Roosevelt formula, was £18,088 million, but that in actual fact our contribution to the war had been £30,000 million, that is to say, we have paid, on the basis of the Roosevelt formula, £12,000 million more than we should have done. On the other hand, the United States, whose total income was £216,600 million, and whose due was £82,103 million, only paid £70,000 million, roughly about the same less than we had in fact paid more.

Mr. Gibson worked it out not only for the United Kingdom, but for Russia, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States. He showed that the Soviet Union, Canada and New Zealand had broken square, and that Australia had paid about £500 million less than she should. It cannot be too often said that this country bled itself white in two wars. It bled itself white of its young men in the first world war, but thank goodness we were spared that tragedy in the second world war. Nevertheless it must not be forgotten that in the last war we broke our economic back.

Nothing that the right hon. Member for Woodford can do can ever wipe out the debt of gratitude I feel towards him for his leadership during the war, and it causes me great pain to see him descend from the heights of a great national leader—speaking, as he did, for every man, woman and child who loved their country—to the depths of the worst form of political partisanship, and to see his name dragged in the mud in order that he can return to power. The harm he is doing is, I am afraid, going to outlive the great service he rendered during the war because he is managing to persuade a considerable section in the United States that we are, in fact, spongers.

How maddening it must be for one of the four million unemployed men in the United States, whose family is in need of the basic things of life, to read the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, perhaps reprinted in the Middle or Far West, and perhaps even distorted, to the effect that we are a nation of spongers, and that that man would have a higher standard of life if things were not exported to this country. The truth is, of course, the very opposite. The United States with its vast economic potential can never hope to have a stabilised economy unless it adopts the same measures as we ourselves have adopted.

There is another aspect to which I think some attention should be paid. I was very glad when my hon. Friend the Member for East Coventry (Mr. Cross-man) interrupted the hon. Member for Monmouth to point out that the basis of the present short-term difficulties arises from a cessation of buying of colonial primary products by the United States. What is the good of sending our young men out to Malaya to maintain law and order there if the United States, as the result of its economic policy, is in fact creating more havoc? We are acting as a world policeman in a situation which is bound, ultimately, to get out of control. There has got to be a balanced long-term approach to the economic problem disposing of primary products such as the tin and rubber of Malaya, and the cocoa of West Africa, unless those countries are to descend to chaos.

I heard the speech of the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Eccles). If that is the doctrine of the Conservative Party, if that is the doctrine on which they are to fight the election, heaven help this country if they come to power, because, in fact, what he was saying was, "Each for himself and the devil take the hindmost." This country cannot live by itself alone and, in the ultimate, I do not believe any country in the world can live by itself alone. It took us a Second World War to learn the simple truth that peace is indivisible. I pray it will not take a third world war, and that we shall learn by easier ways, that there is another truth, that no country can prosper at the expense of the misery of another.