David,
I am very interested in who's up who and who pays the rent during the 20's,30's and particularly WW2. It seems very convoluted with all sorts of purchase, lease, trade and loan schemes in operation.
From what I understand India had a stand-alone budget fully sourced from within India despite being a British possession at the time. Of course right to the moment Mountbatten stepped onto the last boat out of town the British continued milking the country. It would seem that even in the most expensive times, such as fighting the Indian Mutiny, Britain did not have a single year in the red on her best investment by far. I have read many accounts of the Indian treasury paying for equipment and activities during the early 20th century period.
The most notable was when the British were involved in Iraq just after the First World War in circumstances almost identical to the current debacle. Churchill, in one of his numerous political reincarnations, decided the operation was sending UK broke and they could not afford to maintain a huge force in Iraq in an unpopular endless campaign. The simple solution was to withdraw the British troops and order the Indians to replace them (at India's expense). Churchill is recorded as boasting of this sleight of hand as maintaining British presence at someone else's expense!
The point of my comments are, no matter who actually paid the factory for the trucks, I am sure the Indians finished up with the final bill in the same manner as the dominions.
Lang
|