AMERICAN POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 October 1940, Page 8

AMERICAN POLICY

MR ROOSEVELT’S SPEECH WELCOMED PRESS COMMENT IN BRITAIN. MOST FORTHRIGHT ANSWER TO DICTATORS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 14. President Roosevelt's broadcast on Saturday, following closely on recent declarations by Mr Wendell Willkie, has given what the Press here feels is an authentic notice in unmistakable terms of where the United States stands on the great moral issues which took Britain into the war against Hitlerism and where the American people will continue to stand till all danger to the ideals of freedom, justice and neighbourliness among nations is overthrown. The “Daily Telegraph” hails the speech as the most forthright answer yet given to the Axis-Japanese pact. “The President has restated the country’s intentions with new emphasis,” it says. "He placed the widest possible interpretatin upon its policy of defending the Western Hemisphere against acts of aggression, reminding all whom it may concern that not merely the territories of the American continent and its adjacent islands are guaranteed by that policy, but also ‘the peaceful use of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans’ —the traditional principle of American diplomacy which has been ignored, before with disastrous results to the challenger. “With this President Roosevelt combines a perfectly clear assurance upon the matter which more nearly concerns Britain and those peoples who in any way are able to act with her as combatants. ‘No combination of dictator countries of Europe and Asia,’ said President Roosevelt, ‘will prevent the help we are giving to almost the last free people fighting to hold them at bay.’ That is as plain "as words can make it.” “The Times” says: “If the pact with Japan was designed to intimidate America, its failure has been disastrous. President Roosevelt’s broadcast left no doubt where the United States stand and how it regards the pact. On the eve of a bitterly contested election the President could not have spoken as he did in this vigorous and uncompromising pronouncement if he had not been, speaking for the great majority in the country.” The same point is made by the “Daily Herald,” which writes: “Whoever wins, the pledge to help Britain stands. Mr Willkie sees his duty as clearly as President Roosevelt.” The President’s answer to the Axis threats has evoked admiring comment in. other parts of the Empire. The Melbourne "Argus'’ says: “The President’s bluntness is welcomed throughout the Empire. He explicitly pledged the United States to give protection to the entire Western Hemisphere. The President's words mean that we will not be left solely to our. own devices if menaced from the north. The corollary of this is that our participation in the Empire’s struggle can be as full and whole-hearted as the people of Australia wish it to be. Australia s first line of defence is necessarily naval. With the assurance that the United States is vitally interested in the Pacific, we can deploy our full strength where it can be used to the greatest advantage.”