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"The road ahead is long. The Philippines still have the highest prices outside of China. Copra production, the nation's third biggest export item, is back to prewar level (and the price, at $220 a ton, has shot far above the prewar average of $50), but this year the Filipinos will have to import, instead of export, sugar. Gold production, second biggest cash item, is nil because mines had been badly damaged by looting and demolition. Total exports have shrunk by more than a third, while imports have risen. Although he has pared his budget, Manuel Roxas sees no hope of balancing it without continued U.S. assistance.
"The country will require much more help. The question is, how much help can we render without making the Filipinos too dependent? This is likely to be the only heartily capitalistic country and if we want to prove that capitalism can work in the Orient we've got to give a big shove in the Philippines. Roxas is performing as well as anyone could in such tough conditions.
"If he could only stop that graft."