Remarks of Welcome to the Delegates to the Tenth Colombo Plan Meeting, Seattle, Washington

Mr. Chairman, Governor Rosellini, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is indeed a high privilege to extend a warm welcome to the Colombo Plan Consultative Committee, as it conducts its first meeting in the United States. I may say that the meaning I would like to put into words of welcome is far more intense than I can express in the words themselves. We truly hope that this meeting Will be not only productive but will be for each of you here in this country a new and exciting experience.

In eight years, your organization has grown from seven to eighteen member nations, representing more than a third of the world's population. As an informal and advisory group, it has helped these countries to work together in promoting the growth of south and southeast Asia. The Committee has contributed greatly to the efforts of free men to achieve economic progress.

The results are seen in new roads and power facilities; in more factories and increased farm production; in better lives for seven hundred million people in free Asia.

The United States recognizes the Colombo Plan Association as a major instrument for the economic advancement of this region. It expects to take increasing advantage of your cooperative activities in shaping its own financing of development programs in south and southeast Asia.

II.

Much has been accomplished--even more remains to be done in our common struggle against human want and human suffering throughout the less developed areas.

In vast stretches of the earth, men awoke today in hunger. They will spend the day in unceasing toil. And as the sun goes down they will still know hunger.

They will see suffering in the eyes of their children.

Many despair that their labor will ever decently shelter their families or protect them against disease.

So long as this is so, peace and freedom will be in danger throughout our world. for wherever free men lose hope of progress, liberty will be weakened and the seeds of conflict will be sown.

But in working together to create that hope of progress, we raise barriers against tyranny and the war which tyranny breeds.

Oceans and great distances do not divide the human family in the sight of our Divine Creator. We are all His children. He teaches us to cherish and sustain one another.

And in joining hands against human suffering, we fulfill His teachings, which are shared by all our religions and all our peoples.

We respond to our common conviction that man is not a mere particle of matter, that he has a spiritual origin and destiny which bind him to his fellow men.

It is this concept of the brotherhood of man which inspires us in the great struggle on which we are launched.

III.

Our task is a great one. It will take many years to fulfill. Yet if we undertake it boldly, with wisdom and determination, we can and will succeed.

What are the steps that we should take? First, we must keep in mind our goal.

That goal is to enable free nations to achieve a momentum of economic progress which will make it possible for them to go forward in self-reliant growth.

Next, we must determine the means by which we are to achieve that goal.

To this end, Secretary of State Dulles suggested at the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on September 18th that all countries of good will should chart anew their long-term courses of action to promote the growth of less developed areas.

If both the less developed and the more developed countries move vigorously to carry out this proposal, their action could pave the way for the nineteen sixties to become a decade of unprecedented progress toward our common goal.

IV.

The United States stands ready to play its full part in this great peaceful crusade to achieve continuing growth in freedom.

I should like to dwell briefly on the measures that the United States is prepared to take to this end, subject of course to appropriate action by the United States Congress.

Taken together, I believe that these measures constitute a comprehensive program for assisting economic development--one in which not only the United States but many other free countries might participate.

The United States will press these measures energetically, consistent with the maintenance of a sound domestic economy. Our country's outlays must never outrun the levels justified by the continuing growth of our economic strength, if this nation is to sustain the long-term effort that is required. fortunately, the United States economy is forging ahead, as it emerges from a brief period of readjustment. Its expanding resources should permit a vigorous prosecution of the program for progress I wish to outline today.

That program is addressed to the five major requirements for economic growth:

One: for expanded international trade.

Two: for technical skills.

Three: for private investment.

Four: for normal bankable loans.

Five: for financing to cover other sound projects which will afford the borrower flexibility regarding terms of repayment.

V.

First, then, as to expanded trade.

The larger part of the capital goods required for economic development must, of course, be financed through international trade. I believe that great benefits should be realized by all, if all our countries cooperate in assuring the expansion of trade and in relaxing the restrictions which have hindered its flow.

For many of the less developed countries, export trade is concentrated in a few primary commodities. To maintain a healthy world demand for these commodities, we must have a high and expanding level of economic activity throughout the free world. Where special difficulties may arise with respect to particular primary commodities, the United States is prepared to join in a discussion of such problems to see whether or not a solution can promptly be found.

VI.

The second major requirement is for technical skills.

These skills are the bedrock of economic development. Unless they are more widely shared in the free world, no amount of capital flow will bring about the desired growth. Indeed, without competent management, supplemented by satisfactory levels of skills in the professions and in the trades, the most efficiently constructed factory would represent nothing but a wasteful and useless expenditure.

Now what should be done to create this sharing of competence? National programs of technical assistance should be carded forward. The United States will press its own program, through our International Cooperation Administration, even more vigorously than in the past. I hope that other countries will act in the same spirit.

The work of the United Nations is of great importance in this field. The United States will continue to participate in the expanded technical assistance program of that organization. We have pledged a contribution to its new Special Projects fund.

Regional discussion of these technical assistance programs can be very helpful. An outstanding example is the work of the Colombo Plan Association itself.

VII.

A third major requirement is for private investment.

Americans are particularly conscious of the importance of private investment for two reasons.

The continuing growth of their own country is due largely to private efforts and to private initiative. Our citizens have confidence in free enterprise as a means of achieving economic growth because we have seen it work. We know what it can do.

Secondly, the resources of American private capital are far larger than the amounts which our government can possibly provide. Most of the productive talent and resources of our society are in private hands. Our strength lies in the diversity of private individuals, organizations, and interests, and in the quality of their technical skills, their imagination, and their initiative. If this country is to be of greatest help to less developed countries, therefore, its private resources will need to be drawn upon to the greatest extent possible.

The United States government is studying how best to help bring this about. I am confident that we will discover methods of enhancing the constructive role of private investment in promoting the growth of less developed areas.

It would seem desirable that the less developed nations will also explore the full potentialities of private initiative. To create a favorable climate for outside investment, one of the things most needed is assurance to prospective private investors that their capital will be respected and allowed to work productively. Thus these countries will not only encourage the flow of needed capital and technical skills, but will provide an added and helpful stimulus to the development of their own business enterprises.

VIII.

The fourth requirement is for public loans on normal bankable terms. These loans are usually made for projects, like the building of a new road system, which are not attractive to direct private investment. These loans are made to borrowers who will be able to repay in foreign exchange and on banking terms.

Such loans are now being extended by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The recent meeting of the Bank's Board of Governors in New Delhi decided that the Executive Directors would promptly consider an increase in the Bank's capital subscriptions. Without requiring the Bank's members to make new payment, such an increase would enable the Bank to obtain greater funds in the private market. The United States believes that this should be done.

At New Delhi it was also agreed to consider the advisability of an increase in the quotas of the International Monetary fund. The fund has greatly helped the development of many countries through timely assistance in meeting their balance-of-payments difficulties and by providing valuable advice on fiscal and monetary policies. The United States believes that such an increase is important if the International Monetary fund is to continue to carry out its vital role in furthering the economic growth of the free world.

The United States extends bankable loans for development also through the United States Export-Import Bank. Its operations and those of the International Bank complement and reinforce each other.

The Export-Import Bank has made an outstanding contribution to economic development. Other countries' lending agencies can also play an increasingly effective part in providing bankable loans for sound development projects and programs.

IX.

I now turn to the fifth vital requirement: for development financing which will afford the borrower flexibility regarding terms of repayment. Many sound projects, which are essential to development, cannot qualify for bankable loans. If these projects are not carried out, economic growth will not go forward at the rate that is required.

It was to help finance such projects on a businesslike basis that the United States Congress last year established the Development Loan fund. The fund is authorized to make loans which can be repaid in the currency of the borrowing country, not only in dollars.

It is intended to provide a basis for increasingly effective long-term programs to hasten growth in less developed areas.

It enables these countries to utilize better their own resources for such programs.

It works closely with our Export-Import Bank and with the International Bank, to stimulate an increased flow of bankable loans for such programs.

It furnishes increased loans for private projects and assists the growth of private enterprise in the less developed regions.

The Colombo Plan countries have already received more than half of the Development Loan fund's loans.

Your response to this new instrument of development policy has underscored the importance of its operations.

Colombo Plan Nations have requested further loans for key projects which exceed the available resources of the fund.

Additions to the fund are needed if the Development Loan fund is to carry forward these operations effectively.

I hope that the Congress will from time to time provide adequate resources for the Development Loan fund. This will enable the fund to continue to serve as an effective instrument of United States policy in meeting the vital needs which exist for development financing with flexible repayment terms.

If other more developed countries should also act vigorously to meet these growing needs, progress would be hastened.

The United States would welcome the contributions of other countries to this end. The possibility of creating an International Development Association for this purpose, as an affiliate of the International Bank, was discussed at my suggestion by Secretary of the Treasury Anderson at the New Delhi meeting. These discussions were encouraging. Possibly an International Development Association can be brought into being as one way of effectively mobilizing financial resources contributed by the free world as a whole.

X.

This then is the five-part program for progress which I hope will be carried out by the United States and other countries: to expand international trade; to provide technical assistance; to encourage private investment and initiative; to support bankable lending; and to furnish financing on flexible terms of repayment for other sound projects.

The measures to expand trade, and to provide increased technical assistance and bankable loans, are already charted or underway. The vital measures to provide both greater private investment and expanded development financing on flexible terms remain to be carried out. It is these two important types of measures that will require special and increasing emphasis by all our countries in the period of stocktaking and planning that lies ahead.

If this is done and if sound measures of self-help are also charted by the less developed countries, this period of review could prove to be a turning point in the development efforts of free men.

It is fitting that we should dedicate ourselves to that task in this great city of Seattle.

The men and women who settled this region were moved by the same belief in freedom that brings us together here today.

They came here to build a new future in liberty for themselves and their posterity. They knew that only in liberty could the moral values which all men cherish be enriched. They knew that liberty would only be secure if they were able to repel the tyranny of hunger, as well as the tyranny of authority.

In pledging to work together to this end, we reaffirm our faith in freedom.

In cherishing freedom, we reaffirm our faith in the worth and dignity with which a Divine Creator endowed each human being.

It is this faith which moves and joins all of us in the undertaking on which we have embarked.

In this faith, we are prepared to labor diligently. In this faith, I believe that we will succeed.

My friends, again I assure you the sense of distinction and honor I have in the invitation to meet with you, and again I say warm welcome to the United States during your stay here.

Thank you very much.

Gentlemen, I could not possibly leave this room without attempting to express some small measure of my appreciation of the understanding these spokesmen have exhibited toward the purposes of the American people and its government.

I am truly grateful and complimented by the over-generosity of the sentiments you have expressed toward me personally.

And I would like, as my last word, to ask each of you to convey to your heads of state and to those heads of government who cannot be here today, my personal and official felicitations and warm greetings, and to express to those heads of state and heads of government the great hope of the American people that each of the peoples that you represent will continue to march ahead in the level of its standards of living--and always in the freedom and the dignity of men who are truly free.

Thank you very much, and goodbye.