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Show THE AMERICAN, WAY BELGIUM LEADS THE WAY -vV . By Gears Ptckm JLJL-J Belgium today is a veritable oasis of free economy in a European Euro-pean desert of socialistic or managed man-aged economies. As a result the Belgians were the first people in Europe to regain prosperity in the postwar era. Belgium has a balanced national budget and the Belgian franc is firmly established. estab-lished. Belgium has insisted that her own and Europe's recovery depend de-pend on a return to sound finance fi-nance and free enterprise, not only in her own but in neighbor countries. She has proved by her own example that this is the one and only course to pursue if Europe is to succeed in binding up her wounds, repairing the ravages rav-ages of war and bringing prosperity pros-perity to the European continent. As a result of Belgium having led the way in lifting government govern-ment controls from internal and external trade, she has required comparatively little aid from us under the Marshall Plan. For instance, in the first year's distribution, dis-tribution, Belgium got only $4.70 per head of population in direct help, as compared with $20 for Britain, $32 for France and $48 for Holland. Today if you have a Belgian franc, no matter where or how i you got it, you can purchase Belgian goods and services with it. Not so with the British pound. You have to purchase your British Bri-tish pound through the Bank of England at the official rate. Control-ridden Johnny Bull argues that this is necessary to "support "sup-port the currency." Belgium has found that the more she decontrolled the better I things became. Her domestic production pro-duction and foreign trade have bounced back with more vigor than that of any other formerly occupied country. She has outstripped out-stripped her neighbors in standard stand-ard of living; has become an island of relative plenty in a sea of poverty-stricken, socialized nations. And while Belgium has been staging this splendid performance perform-ance to prove that that nation fares best that maintains a free economy, our economic planners, American style, are moving heaven heav-en and earth to foist on free America controls of every conceivable con-ceivable sortthe very kind of controls that have delayed and are still impeding the recovery of Europe, outside of Belgium. Histnrv ic rrnletp with pvam. pies of once-great nations that have destroyed themselves by adopting government controls and putting economic planners ' and managers in charge of their economies. Because this nation avoided the pitfalls of controls we established the soundest economy econ-omy in world history. The answer an-swer asto why a controlled-econ-omy nation flourishes, is simple. God has so ordained that the combined wisdom of all the people peo-ple shall always be greater than the wisdom of a relatively small number of economic planners, no matter how brilliant those planners plan-ners may be. This brings to mind an episode in early American history. In the summer and fall of 1787, the Constitutional Convention sat in Philadelphia. That same summer John Fitch, also in Philadelphia, built the first steamboat. It is pretty generally accepted that he Constitutional Convention brought together about the wisest wis-est body of men that ever undertook under-took a big job. They laid .the foundation for the world's greatest great-est nation. When his boat was ready, John Fitch invited the Convention delegates del-egates to come down to the Delaware Del-aware waterfront to see his boat start off. ' The Convention was adjourned for the purpose and many of its members accepted the invitation. But, George Washington, Wash-ington, president of the Convention, Conven-tion, foremost among the nation's na-tion's founders, and ardent advocate advo-cate of developing our waterways, water-ways, regarded the experiment as too illusive to justify the honor hon-or Of his presence. So, when the Convention adjourned he drove off to dine with a friend. John Fitch had invented the steamboat which was destined to revolutionize water transporta- tion. If George Washington, Benjamin Ben-jamin Franklin and the other wise men in that Convention could not vision the far-reaching consequences of Fitch's invention, inven-tion, just where will ever be found economic planners with such vision? |