And underlying all these problems was the fact that the clock was ticking on the American loan negotiated by Keynes, which had provided Britain with the dollars to continue its international trade following the abrupt cessation of Lend Lease one week after Japan surrendered. Parliament accepted the terms of the fifty-year loan in December 1946, obliging the British government to return sterling to convertibility within two years. This was duly done on July 15, 1947, and then suspended once more on August 21, 1947 because most of the loan had by that time been expended defending sterling’s parity.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 410