Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1940. AMERICAN PRECAUTIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 158, 4 June 1940, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1940. AMERICAN PRECAUTIONS.

Tiie lessons of the past three weeks in Holland, Belgium, and France have been so impressed on President Roosevelt’s mind that he has put forward another big defence programme. Con-, gress has been asked to author--ise the spending of an additional 1,000 million dollars because of, the. possibility that ‘Trot only one 1 or two continents, but all may be involved in a world-wide war.” While British and French armies, with the help that Hoi land and Belgium could give them, have gallantly been striving against the tremendous force of Hitler’s mechanised armies, the United States from the imaginary isolation behind which so many Americans believe they rest in security has been able to gauge exactly what modern warfare really is and to estimate its lessons. The most obvious, Mr Roosevelt points out, is the value of speed. He has seen the lightning attacks from Germany upon weak States, and particularly in the past few weeks has been able to realise that if these attacks are to be adequately met speed must enter into all calculations. In five days Holland was subjugated; Belgium was able to put up a good show until her King some days later traitorously handed over his country to Hitler, and now France is to be the main theatre of the war 'on land unless Germany tries to invade Britain. Hitler achieved all of this because .of the vastne.ss of his mechanised forces and the strategy they employed in conjunction with bombing aeroplanes. Modern defence, Mr Roosevelt says, requires that the indomitable determination of men be supported by highly developed machinery and industrial productive capacity. Critical material such as guns, tanks, and aerbplanes have been asked for, as well as facilities for their mass production, the training of the National Guard Reserves, and of specialists for non-com-batant work behind the lines.

It is well for such a huge country as the United States to realise the potency of adequate defences,; yet there are many Americans who still refuse to believe that a world-war would involve their country. They are the isolationists who still cling'to the hope that their democracy will not be attacked. A correspondent of an American paper has taken these people to task. For them, he says, tending the fires of democracy at home has become a smugly justifying phrase, overworked by emotionalists who are afraid that the United States may again have to fight. But he points out that their liberty and freedom have been gained by America’s fighting men and through the sacrifices of their heroic women. “Those too utterly selfish to sacrifice a moment of comfort to perpetuate those blessings are not the ones to tend America’s fires now. It may not

be that America will be called upon to fight in this war; but I resent the feverish activity of those who would make America craven should the tesFcome.” It is in the spirit of this commenta-r tor that the country’s first citizen has addressed Congress to make the -United States better equipped, and therefore able to exercise speed in meeting any enemy whether in the immediate future or in years to come. ''