Australia USA Lend Lease

[Mike Cecil]

250M pounds of wool = between 600,000 and 950,000 bales depending on quality/packing density = much less than a year's Australian wool clip. By June 1942, the US stock of wool from all global sources exceeded 2.7 million Bales of wool. It is why, by 1945, with all the difficulties of selling and exporting wool during the war years, there was over 5Million bales in storage in Australia, most owned by Australia.

The British purchased wool in large quantities in the years 1939 to end 1941 for strategic reasons: (1) to prevent Aust wool being sold to the Japanese and (2) to prevent Aust wool being sold to third countries which could then on-sell to Germany by importation through Russia. By the end of 1941, both strategic reasons had vanished. The Brits sold some of their Aust wool in storage to the US in late 1941 (agreement reached in September) to provide the British with much needed US$ but as noted above, the quantity was not even a single year's Australian clip. So ships heading to the USA in late 1941 and early 1942 may well have carried wool on the return journey.

But did wool and wheat vector into the LL-RLL formaula? Nothing I have found supports that contention. As detailed in Butlin and Schedvin's volume of the official history, the LL-RLL account did not include unprocessed commodities.

The Canadian Mutual Aid agreement - now that's a whole different bag of worms!!



Mike