EMBARGO DEBATE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1939, Page 7

EMBARGO DEBATE

SPEECHES IN AMERICAN SENATE . OPINION MUCH DIVIDED. ’ ISSUES OF WAR & PEACE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day. 8.55 a.m.) WASHINGTON. October 4. Senator Connally, debating neutrality, advocated the repeal of the embargo. He asserted that the present law certainly would involve the United States in war. Mr Connally accused Senator Borah and ether oppositionists of basing their arguments on false premises. The tall, drawling Texan, a veteran of the Spanish-American and Great Wars, is a forceful orator. He warned the House that if the law was not changed Germany would begin sinking American merchantmen. He recalled the German submarine activity against the United States in the Great War. saying Germany would not hesitate to do so again. Ho contended that Germany could not object to the United States selling arms when Germany herself was buying from other neutrals. “An embargo which permits sales of arms in peace time and denies them in war time.” Mr Connally declared, “encourages highwaymen and outlaws to equip themselves for aggression and at the same time the embargo denies peacful and law-abid-ing citizens the right to prepare to defend themselves.” Mr Connally suggested that Congress should create an unbeatable navy and bring the army up to full strength. He called the oceans four-way paved highways, on which enemy forces could travel to attack the United States. He further warned aggressors that the United States did not want to quarrel, but that it would be a bettei policy not to send spies, organisers and secret societies to undermine American ideals.

ARMISTICE URGED. Senator Edward Johnson moved a resolution requesting President Roosevelt to join other neutrals in urging an immediate armistice in the European war “The best insurance of keeping the United States out of the war," he said, “is to stop the war.” Senator Clark suggested that Biitam and France should cede their Western Hemisphere islands to the United States as partial payment of war debts. “They would be an-economic liability instead of an asset,” he said, "but it. would obviate the danger that they would be an object of attack by belligerents.”

SYMBOL OF NEUTRALITY. Senator Vandenberg asserted that the embargo had become a symbol of American neutrality. The world would accept the repeal as an indication that America was taking sides in the wai. “Somebody will be fooled, either America, which is assured the change is wholly pacific, or foreigners, believing it is the casting of our die.” he said. “Either diisillusionment would be intolerable and ominous. Consciously or otherwise— mostly consciously—we are asked to depart .from our neutrality policy on behalf of one belligerent, whom our personal sympathies largely favour, against another whom „bu.i’ personal feelings largely condemn. My opinion is that this road may lead us to war. I will not voluntarily take it. We may start, with cash and carry munitions, but alien cash is limited and will one day run out. The next step will be loans to carry on the present war. We have already relegated the collection of Great War debts to the ledgers of the millenium.”

LAYING UP SHIPS

I EFFECT OF THE BILL AS IT STANDS. MODIFICATIONS OF RESTRICTION ANTICIPATED. (Received This Day. 9.50 a.m.) NEW YORK. October 4. The Washington correspondent of the New York “Times” states it is assumed that some of the commerce restrictions have been deliberately inserted in the Neutrality Bill to enable Administration leaders to bargain with the Oppositionists. If this is true, the sections nullifying American shipping in the Pacific will be modified in order to hold votes for the repeal of the Arms Embargo, but if the assumption is incorrect and the Bill is passed in its ■present form, shippers and business men agree that it would lay up for the duration of a war in which the United States is not engaged nearly 400 American ships, carrying upwards of two million cargo tons daily. It would mean the retiremen of American merchantmen as completely as if they had been sunk by submarines and stoppages of essential goods from ports thousands of miles beyond any actual war zone, for example, India. Jute is used almost exclusively in baling American cotton. Thus the Bill as it stands would suspent American seaborne freight in areas which are belligerent technically only. If there are on modifications, the Neutrality Bill will soon find itself in difficulties greater than those caused by the 90day credit proposal. The tactics of the Administration forces are awaited with the keenest interest.