FALING THE FACTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 October 1939, Page 5

FALING THE FACTS

AMERICAN NEUTRALITY

DISCUSSION INTERESTS OF NATIONAL SECURITY. INVOLVED IN EMBARGO REPEAL. By Telegraph —Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day. 9.15 a.m.) / NEW YORK. October 5. A dispjatch from Mr Arthur Krock chief correspondent in Washington of the "New York Times,” states that a greater degree of candour concerning the real issue has begun to enter the Senate debate on the repeal of the arms embargo. It has taken the form of an open assertion or admission that the interest and security of the United States require that Britain and France to be relieved of the disadvantages of fighting Germany under an arms embargo. There are mainly two reasons why the Administration feels that the interest of the United States requires the repeal of the Embargo:— (1) Our first line of defence against totalitarian aggression is France. (2) The outcome of the war may not remove its causes and prevent its recurrence or stop the spread of aggressive autocracy. It may therefore be necessary for the United ' Spates to augment the armament repeal embargo and create here the armament industry thus needed. On these issues citizens can sincerely and honestly take sides without strategy and without camouflage. There is no longer any necessity for the confusion of arguments of one group that it favours the repeal chiefly as “a return to international law" and the other insisting that to revise it in war time is a violation of that law.

SENATE DEBATE

OLD AND FAMILIAR ARGUMENTS

(Received This Day, 9.55 a.m.) WASHINGTON. October 5.

The Senate debate on neutrality was resumed today, but the arguments of both proponents and opponents were old and familiar. Senator Overton, a Southern Democrat whose record of support for the Administration is exemplary, parted company with President Roosevelt on the neutrality issue and urged retention of the arms embargo. Otherwise, he declared, the United States would be drawn into the war.

Senator Tobey secured the approval of the Senate for his proposal of Monday, but the Administration leaders indicated that they frowned on it and it would be defeated.

Senator Nye said succinctly: “There is nothing ahead of America but hell if we repeal the embargo,” but he approved the cash and carry plan for the sale to belligerents of goods other than arms.