“ROAD TO WAR”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20061, 6 October 1939, Page 11

“ROAD TO WAR”

ARMS BAN REPEAL OPPOSITION STAND U.s. SENATE DEBATE RELAXATION LIKELY SHIPPING CONTROL (Tel. Copyright—limit'd Press Assn.) I Reed. Oct. 5, 1.50 p.m.) WASHINGTON. Oct. 4. During the Senate debate on the | Administration’s bill to amend the Neutrality Act, Senator Edward Johnson moved a resolution requesting President iiooscvclt to .join other neutral nations in urging an immediate armistice in the European war. i “The best insurance lor keeping the United States out of war is to stop | the war," he declared. ! Senator Clark suggested that Britain and France should cede their western hemisphere islands to the United States as a partial payment tor war debts. “They would be an economic liability instead of an asset, but would obviate the danger that they would be an object of attack by belligerents." Senator Vandenberg asserted that j the embargo on the sale of arms to j belligerents had become a symbol of | American neutrality. The world would accept repeal of tlie ban as an | indication that America was taking I sides in the war. Somebody Will He Fooled “Somebody will be fooled —either j America, which is assured that the | change will be wholly pacific, or the i foreigners in believing that it is cast- | ing our die. For either the dis- | illusionmcnt will be intolerable and I ominous. Consciously or otherwise — mostly consciously—we are asked to depart from our neutrality policy on behalf of one belligerent whom our personal sympathies largely favour against another whom our personal feelings largely condemn. My opinion | is that this road may lead us to war. i I will not voluntarily lake it. We I may start with cash-and-carry muni- | lions, but alien* cash is limited and ; will one day run out. The next step ! will be loans to carry on the present ! war. We have already relegated a ! collection of Great War debts to the ! ledgers of the millenium.” Commerce Restriction The Washington correspondent of the New York Times states that it is assumed that some commerce restriction in the Neutrality Bill will be deliberately inserted to enable Administration leaders to bargain with thcopposition. If this is true the sections nullifying American shipping in the Pacific will be modified in order to hold votes for the repeal of the cmi bargo, but if this assumption is cor- | rcct and the bill is passed in its j present form shippers and business* 1 men agree that it would lay up for j the duration of a war. in which the j United States is not engaged, nearly 1400 American ships carrying upward of 2,000,000 tons of cargo daily. It I would mean the retirement of Ameri|can merchantmen completely as if they were sunk by submarines and the stoppage of essential goods from ports thousands of miles beyond any actual war zone. For example, Indian jute is used almost exclusively for baling American cotton. Thus, the bill as it stands, would suspend American seaborne freight in areas which are belligerent technically only. It there are no modifications, the Neutrality Bill will soon find itself in difficulties greater than those caused by the 90-day credit facilities. The tactics of the Administration forces are awaited with the keenest interest.