AMERICA ACTS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 261, 2 October 1940, Page 6

AMERICA ACTS.

Fresh confirmation of the fact that the United States has, in her dealings with unfriendly Powers, passed from the realm of threats to deeds is forthcoming in her announcement that exports of iron and scrap steel are to be banned, except to the Western Hemisphere and Great Britain. The fact that the ban “is'obviously aimed at Japan, which will, be the importer most affected,” is not blinked. Indeed, added interest accrues from the announcement that the ban is to become effective on October 15— about the time Great Britain will consider reopening the Burma Road giving China means of obtaining munitions and other supplies'. That Britain and the United States are acting in concert is a known fact, and the metal ban is not likely to .be the least step to curb Japan’s aggressive tendencies. Until recent months the Americans have felt themselves to be in a quandary : They desired a general rule which would prevent aid to Japan, but felt that England was in a -comparable position so that any general rule banning munitions and materials would hurt England also. President Roosevelt and his advisers, faced with the most hazardous situation in the history of their nation, have not hesitated to deal a decisive blow to mere technicalities and academics, as is now demonstrated. It is a step extending the earlier ban on the export of fuel for aircraft. Scrap metal has gone to Japan by the thousand tons- —and not from America alone. New Zealanders and Australians remember with mixed feelings the great quantities of scrap which before the Avar left their shores in Japanese ships. Undoubtedly it was .“good business” at the time, but, it would be a sorry experience indeed were our nations to encounter it in the form of shells. America has, -in effect, taken one more step in enforcing a blockade on a truculent Pon-er —a nation which, howe\-er much' it may boast of its might, is at a hopeless disadvantage from the aspect of raw materials once the democracies cut off its supplies. It is only a question whether they have acted in time.