ARMY EQUIPMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1940, Page 5

ARMY EQUIPMENT

PROPOSALS BY PRESIDENT'

ROOSEVELT FACILITATING SALES TO ALLIES. LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY SOUGHT. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received This Day, 9.15 a.m.) WASHINGTON, June 7. President Roosevelt, at a Press conference said he was asking Con- ' gress to incorporate, in pending legislation, authority for the United States to trade in old types of guns and thereby complete the Government’s power to turn back to the manufacturers all kinds of surplus equipment. The effect would be to make available to the Allies large stores of war supplies. Continuing, President Roosevelt said authority already existed to turn back ammunition and aeroplanes to the manufacturers, but not guns. He added that new equipment could not be turned, but “planes get out-dated darned fast.” President Roosevelt said he referred specifically to large quantities of British and French seventy-fives (field guns) which had been stored in the United States since 1919. Asked whether confidential equipment, like bomb-sights, could be removed from planes and returned to the manufacturers, President Roosevelt said: “I do not think there is any need to worry on that score.”