-3-                             
 
                                                            
 
 
being discussed by the Four Powers in Washington this week and which you   
have seen or soon will see, is a workable plan. As the features regarding   
the regulation of armaments and pecifying forces and facilities to be   
available require legislative ratifacation, it would seem wise now to have   
a Four Power interim agreement to provide force to keep the peace for the   
third period from the end of the fighting until such special agreements   
              can be formulated and concluded.              
 
                                                            
 
 
Your observations regarding world economic problems interest me very much.   
Your profound interest in this phase of national and international affairs   
is based upon similar belief on my part. The political structure  
is dependent upon the economic for its permanence. How far national   
interest is to be or in some cases must be paramount is a question   
                  requiring careful study.                  
 
                                                            
 
 
My reaction after months of effort to frame a simple formula   
that would be applicable and workable as well as enduring, left me in   
doubt. This state of mind was not improved by our preliminary discussions   
in the Washington meetings between your economic exports and our own last   
September-October of which I acted as Chairman. We reached only a   
preliminary stage, but went far enough to develop many of the   
difficulties. We reached no definite conclusions. We adjourned to   
reassemble in January but; did not. Nothing has happened since except in   
  certain special fields such as aviation, oil, etc. etc.   
 
                                                            
 
 
 Your paragraph 3, page 2 et sq. leads to further doubt whether a   
world economic policy of a permanent charactor is possible. One permanent   
feature of the proposed international organization that has been stressed   
a good deal is an economic bureau which would make a continuing study of   
international trade and commerce, and serve in course of time to bring   
about same of the major projects for a more free world trade
 
                                                            
 
 
In the stress of war and its conclusion and its immediate aftermath I am   
not confident that the  various and mighty questions in the field of   
national and world economy can be made clear on the soundest lines, or   
translated into immediate practice, so fluctuating are the movements of   
trade, influenced by varying productive factors affecting cost, ect. ect.   
Your expressed thoughts are far more crystallized than my own.  An   
economic commissiion to study such projects could be set up promptly, and   
in time it could give way to or be absorbed by that arm of the   
international organization which would deal permanently with those   
                         problems.                          
 
                                                            
 
 
Regarding World Bank and Stabilizations Funds- the Bretton Woods   
Conference did its best, I assume, to find a sound and workable plan   
                          in both