ARMS & PEACE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 February 1939, Page 6

ARMS & PEACE

POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES REVELATION OF DECISIONS IN 1923. IMPORTANCE OF SCRAP IRON. By Telegraph—Press Association--Copyright. WASHINGTON, February 6/ Hitherto unpublished papers of the State Department for 1923 released today reveal that the United States of America adopted a policy of free trade in armaments during President Harding’s administration.

The papers disclose that the United States refused to join in an international agreement proposed by the League of Nations for the control of arms traffic and insisted on the freedom of international trade in armaments because America was dependent almost entirely on the private manufacture of munitions. The then Secretary for War, Mr Weeks, commented that a curtailment of private manufacture would work for the United States.

Because they had been released at the height of the controversy over the sale of aircraft to Britain and France, these documents have been given great prominence in the Press, which also gives prominence to a warning from Mr Emery Smith, War Industries Board Commissioner in 1919, that the United States could not now enter on a major war because of her lack of scrap iron.

Pointing out that 12,000,000 tons were exported in the last five years. Mr Smith commented: "Without America’s scrap iron there would be no Sino-Japanese war and no bellicose European situation. Our childish neutrality cloak has been used to salve our enemies and destroy our friends, at the same time stripping America of her natural war protection.” He added that the carrying on of a war now was a “virtual financial impossibility” because other countries use scrap while the United States uses newly-mined iron which quadruples the cost of heavy armaments. Mr Smith urged an immediate ban on all metallic war material. Meanwhile President Roosevelt’s foreign policy is likely to be under fire immediately Congress reassembles tomorrow. Significantly his critics have not received open support from Republican leaders, as it is understood that the latter feel that the time is inappropriate to attack the President’s policy because of the popularity of his defence programme. Republican leaders said that they feel that assailing one is assailing the other. However, -there will be no lack of isolationist spokesmen. One of the leading isolationists, Senator Bridges, declared tonight that keeping war away was the consummate wish of all straight-thinking Americans. “Twentytwo years ago,” he added, "we found that to reform Europe we must permanently police it. We helped rid the German peole of the Kaiser. They got Hitler. Should we relieve them of him the chances are that another 20 years will see an even more dangerous leader. The solution of Europe’s problems lies in the hands of the people of Europe.”