ANGLO-AMERICAN ACCORD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24417, 1 October 1940, Page 6

ANGLO-AMERICAN ACCORD

The transfer from the United States to the British Navy of the fifty destroyers that are now taking their place in the front line of defence against the Nazi aggressor presented, in legal terms, a somewhat complicated issue. But in the human terms of friendship between two free peoples, speaking the same language, and holding similar ideals, this was a simple and natural transaction. There are immediate and immeasurably valuable military advantages to both Great Britain and the United States in the agreement which makes needed ships of war available for strengthening the British fleet, and provides the United States with naval and air bases that will greatly improve the defensive position of both the United States and Latin America in the Atlantic. The practical merit of the agreement, as a sensible deal between two nations each requiring something the other possesses, is obvious. In a sense less obvious, but of an enduring worth, is the significance of the exchange as an acknowledgment of the identity of interests, the basis, of unquestioning goodwill, upon which the relations between the two great Powers rest. One condition in the terms of the agreement which is particularly eloquent of the confidence with which it was sealed was the American Government’s request for a formal assurance that if Great Britain were defeated the British' Fleet would not be surrendered or sunk. The assurance was given and accepted without question. Happily, the conditions in which the British Navy would be in need of surrendering to a foreign Power or fleeing to some friendly shore are distinctly hypothetical. But equally, as the British Government learned when the French ally collapsed, an assurance of the nature demanded by America is worthless unless it is given by a Government whose word can be trusted implicitly, whose people can be expected in no circumstances to forget the obligations of friendship. The faith of the American Government in the integrity of the British nation .is attested in a striking manner in this condition. It supplies one more proof that the accord which exists between the American and British peoples is one that recognises co-operation not merely as an instrument for use in a certain phase of international relations, but as a guiding principle in the life of the English-speaking democracies. Contrasted with the cynical, opportunistic bargains that have on the Continent of Europe taken the place of agreements between friendly nations with common interests, the Anglo-American naval agreement shines like a light through the darkness 1 of a world menaced by tyrants and oppressors.