Catalogue description European Recovery Programme: Shipping Arrangements

The American Secretary of State, G C Marshall, first conceived the idea of a European recovery programme, the Marshall Plan, and on 5 June 1947 he expounded his theory at Harvard University. The United States declared its readiness to aid the European countries, this proposal was favourably received, and on 3 July 1947 the Foreign Ministers of France and the UK invited the European states to a conference, the purpose of which was to formulate a recovery programme.

Eventually, and as an outcome of these discussions, the then Committee of European Economic Cooperation (CEEC) met on 15 March 1948 to plan a permanent Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). In April 1948 sixteen countries signed a convention setting up the OEEC.

The implementation of the Marshall Plan was effected by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948 by which the United States Congress first authorised the recovery aid programme. Title I of the Foreign Assistance Act was called the Economic Cooperation Act, 1948, and dealt with the proposed European Recovery Programme.

In September 1947 the Committee of European Economic Cooperation produced its report on Maritime Transport, which had suffered heavy losses during the war. In particular the report reviewed the state of the merchant fleets of participating countries at mid-1947, planned the development of merchant fleets from mid-1947 to 1951, and examined the availability of shipping services to meet requirements in the period up to 1951.

By the summer of 1951 military security had superseded economic preoccupations as the primary objective of American policy in western Europe. This transition of interest was emphasized by the formation of a Mutual Security Programme culminating on 10 October in the Mutual Security Act, 1951.

The new legislation abolished the Economic Cooperation Administration and established in its stead the Mutual Security Agency (MSA). The agency assumed the task of coordinating and supervising all foreign aid programmes: military, economic and technical. The Mutual Defence Assistance Control Act of 1951, popularly known as the "Battle Act", further strengthened the foreign aid programmes by terminating military as well as economic aid in the event of violations.

In November 1950 Mr Gordon Gray, Special Assistant to the President of the United States, produced a report on Foreign Economic Policies, in which emphasis was laid on the importance of strength in Western Europe and the urgent necessity to provide mutual security. He also criticised U.S. shipping policies in the operation of subsidies and cargo preferences.

.In 1953, Mr Bell, Acting Chairman of the Mutual Security Agency, drafted a report on "A Trade and Tariff Policy in the National Interest" - the Bell report. It recommended that cargo preference should not be applied to countries which allowed American shippers to compete on a fair basis. Up to 1959 several other reports were published on shipping activities, and in that year President Eisenhower, in his Budget speech to Congress, made a reappraisal of the adequacy and need for policies laid down in the 1936 Merchant Marine Act. He emphasized the need to implement new national policies and guide lines in the fields of foreign flag registration and the competition of foreign shipping.