By Horace Taylor
Professor of Economics, Columbia University
(Published January 1945)

How Did the Idea of Lend-Lease Get Started? And Why?

• Where did lend-lease start?
• Where was the fire?
• Could we feel the heat over here?
• The hour of decision
• How to aid friends and hit Nazis
• Why couldn’t Britain pay?
• Should we be democracy’s arsenal?

How Was the Idea Turned into the Law of the Land?

• Was lend-lease fully debated?
• Arguments of its supporters
• Why did the Army favor it?
• Arguments of its opponents

How Much of What Goods Have We Sent to Which Allies?

• What were the first results?
• Lend-lease after Pearl Harbor
• What’s our rate of aid now?
• A few facts and figures
• What’s been lend-leased and where?
• What’s the breakdown?

How Much Help Do We Get Via Reverse Lend-Lease?

• What kind of bundles from Britain?
• Reverse lend-lease in the Pacific
• The Burma-India Theater

What Criticisms Have Been Made against Lend-Lease?

• How much is our fair share?
• What do we get out of it?
• Is our sacrifice too heavy?
• Have errors been made?
• What does the record show?
• What is fact and what is fiction?
• Are our allies ungrateful?
• Are they chiseling on us?

What Principles Should Govern the Final Settlement?

• What do the people think?
• Can the books be balanced?
• What is equality of sacrifice?
• How do we stand in lives lost?
• Shall we count only the dollars?
• Is lend-lease a path to peace?
• Is it a portal to prosperity?

What Are Some of the Concrete Problems to Be Faced?

• What about lend-lease leftovers?
• What about capital goods?
• Strategic bases and materials

To the Leader

• Questions for discussion
• Charts
• Reading

Suggestions for Further Reading