AN APPEAL FALLS FLAT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1939, Page 4

AN APPEAL FALLS FLAT.

\ STRONG rally of isolationist sentiment in the United States appears to be the immediate response to the dedaration made a day or two ago by the French Foreign Minister (M. Georges Bonnet) that “if the United States made it known that it. would be on our side (i.e., on the side ol: the European democracies) at the start of any conflict, the spectre 01. war would be definitely banished.” Both supporters and opponents of the American Government’s proposals for the amendment of the Neutrality Act, it is reported in a cablegram today, have received M. Bonnet’s speech frigidly. One of those who has expressed concern at the speech is Mr Bloom, who is to take charge of the amending Bill in the House ol Representatives.

It lias thus been made clear once again that the European democracies have not the slightest prospect of getting any direct and immediate support from the United States in their efforts to build up a peace front in Europe. There is nothing in this state of affairs to occasion surprise. 11 is true that during many months past, and particularly since the seizure of Bohemia and Moravia by Germany, American opinion has turned strongly against the totalitarian dictatorships and in favour of the European democracies. One American writer spoke recently of an enormously increased group in the nation whose members had been “measurably internationalised under the pressure of the crisis in Europe.” Side by side with these developments, however, there is evidence of as great a disinclination as ever to be involved in a European war.

At Congressional hearings in Washington last, month, the evidence of many witnesses was taken on questions of neutrality and foreign policy and, according to a staff correspondent ol: the “Christian Science Monitor,” it was notable that virtually no one advocated sending American troops into a European war.

President Roosevelt’s policy of using “means short of war clearly has the broadest support of any single thumb-rule of policy (the correspondent added). Again and again the statement recurred like a refrain through the many days of testimony: "Of course, I do not favour sending an expeditionary force to Europe; I would not support intervention if that would be the consequence...

The position here defined evidently must be accepted even by those people, some of them Americans, who believe that it war did break out in Europe, the United States inevitably would be involved. It is a possible and even plausible view ol the issues involved that if the United States gave direct and definite support to a European peace front, the likelihood of an outbreak of war would at once become exceedingly remote. That view, however, evidently is not entertained in the United. States on a seale to influence national policy.