Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 1938. ANOTHER AMERICAN LEAD.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 June 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 1938. ANOTHER AMERICAN LEAD.

I JN the ordinary meaning of words, a declaration made publicly on Friday last by the American Secretaiy of State, Mr Cordell Hull, was of great promise and significance. Observing that the most important problem confronting the human race was “the establishment throughout the world of an unshakeable regime of order and law,” Mr Hull said it was his firm conviction that national isolation was not a means to security,, but rathei a fruitful source of insecurity and added: — We are prepared to join with other nations. m moving resolutely towards bringing about an effective agreement for the limitation and progressive reduction of armaments. We are prepared to join other nations in resuming vigorously and carrying forward the work so auspiciously begun at the Hague a generation ago 'of humanising by common agreement rules governing the practice of warfare. So far as words go, this promises well. In the conditions that rule in the world today, a resolute . move by the United States towards bringing about a limitation and reduction of armaments undoubtedly would be welcomed whole-heartedly by our own nation and some others. Experience over a number of years has shown, however, that declarations of this kind by American statesmen are apt to die away ineffectively. President Roosevelt’s widely discussed speech at Chicago last yeai on the subject of the “quarantining” of aggressor nations will be remembered as an outstanding case-in point. There was a great deal of discussion.in the. United States and in other countries as to what the President meant on that occasion by “quarantining.” The question still awaits an answer. Isolationist sentiment in the United States appears to be far too strong meantime to permit of any effective co-operation by that country with others in promoting a limitation of armaments and establishing guarantees of security aaid peace. On the other hand, there are developments of American policy which appear to point clearly to an ultimate abandonment of the isolationist standpoint. In particular, the United States is engaged upon a great programme of naval expansion, not merely in building ships and constructing planes, but in a development oi. island bases, stretching on a five thousand-mile line from Alaska to Pago Pago, which will enable the American fleet to extend its potential effective range, about 3,000 miles further westward. A dry dock is being constructed at Pearl Harbour which will enable the big battleships of the fleet to undergo major repairs in the middle of the Pacific. The most important single reason for this vast naval development, an American writer stated recently, is a desire to contribute to the forces which will convince Japan that a compromise settlement in the Pacific is inevitable in the end. American diplomacy is weighing these forces carefully (the same writer added) and watching their development. They include British naval expansion which will ultimately free a powerful British naval squadron from European waters for use in the Fax East; the course of Chinese resistance,, and the development of Russian military power in Siberia. Although the American programme of naval expansion is defended by some of its stoutest supporters simply on the ground that it is required in the interests of adequate national defence, it is a prograxnxne plainly calculated to enable the United States to make its full influence tell in the treatment of Pacific and Fax 1 Eastern questions. So far, at least, as the Pacific is concerned, the days of American isolation appear to be numbered.