Letter from Frederick H. Boland to G.P.S. Hogan (Dublin)

Many thanks for your letter of the 6th February, enclosing your report of the Sterling Area Statistical Committee meeting on the 29th January.¹ We have sent a copy to Dulanty, as usual.

We are amending the report on our discussion with the Executive Committee of the London (ERP) Committee in accordance with your suggestions. We will be circulating the revised text of the report in due course.

I entirely agree with the point made in the third paragraph of your letter. It seems to us not only desirable but, from a precautionary point of view, absolutely essential to have a written record of the British Government's agreement on the point that, if, in consequence of ERP, we are able to dispense temporarily with the necessity for drawing on the sterling pool, the cesser will be entirely without prejudice to our normal position as a member of the sterling area - a position to which we would automatically revert at once if ERP aid ceases, or falls short of actual requirements. This was, I think, the general view of the Inter-Departmental Working Committee when it discussed the point informally at its meeting on the 2nd February. From subsequent correspondence with you, however, I gathered that you are covering the point in correspondence with Otto Clarke.

I think we have to be a little cautious not to let this Marshall Plan business draw us into too close an economic cooperation with the people across the water, but, in present circumstances, all the argument is in favour of each side being kept as fully informed as possible as to what the other is saying to the Americans, particularly on the points of dollar availability and dollar balance of payments.