Remarks at the Joint Meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Mr. Secretary of the Treasury, the Finance Minister of France, and members of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the International Monetary Fund:

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome you again to Washington. I am particularly pleased that you are here at this time. There is nothing in the world that will contribute more to the peace of the world than international cooperation in finance and development; and that is what you are here for, to try to reach the right conclusions for reconstruction development and a stable interchange of goods and services on a monetary basis that is satisfactory to all concerned.

One of the principal things I think you have to work out is to do away with the obstacles to international trade. We must exchange on a world basis the services and the goods of all the countries among themselves. We would like for you to buy the things which we think we can make best, and we should buy the things which you can make best, and in that way we will have what they call a balance of trade. We will then be on a sound international trade basis, and we can then become on a sound international monetary basis.

I am very much interested in all these things because it was my privilege to be at San Francisco when the Charter of the United Nations was signed. It was my privilege to welcome you here, I think, once or twice before. It was my privilege to welcome the international agricultural people, who are interested in the development of the land resources of all the world, here in this very hotel not so long ago.

I am vitally interested in the success of the United Nations. The Government of the United States, as represented by the President and the Congress, is doing everything it possibly can to make the United Nations a going concern for the peace and welfare of the world.

I hope that all of you enjoy your visit here, that you will come to a constructive conclusion, as I am sure you will, and that all of you will go back home with the idea of cooperation on a world basis for the welfare of the world as a whole.

Thank you very much.