MR WENDELL WILLKIE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 February 1941, Page 6

MR WENDELL WILLKIE

EFFECTIVE AID TO BRITAIN URGED STATEMENT TO SENATE COMMITTEE SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENT’S BILL. WITH SOME MODIFICATIONS i By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrighti (Received This Day. 1.10 p.m.) WASHINGTON. February 11. Mr, Wendell Willkie, testifying before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, declared:—“The only way Congress can aid Britain quickly enough is to enact the Administration's Bill, with modifications. He urged the United States to provide Britan; with five to 10 destroyers monthly. "We should be able to do this directly and swiftly, instead of through a rigmarole of dubious legalistic interpretations." he said. Mr. Willkie suggested that aid under the Bill should be limited to the British Commonwealth, Greece and China, because these were the only countries at present subject to aggression, but Congress should retain power to pass upon any aid for others becoming subject to aggression. He also urged a time limit to the Bill and that Congress should retain the power to terminate, by joint resolution, the President’s extraordinary authority under the Bill. "I have gone to the full limit of my conscience in supporting the Administration's foreign policy,” Mr. Willkie stated, "because of my great desire for national unity. I have wanted to see America stand united before the world as the friend of all. fighting for liberty, as a dcspiscr of all aggressors and despoilers of the democratic way. It would be truly inspiring for us and for liberty lovers everywhere if the bill could be adopted with a non-par-tisan and almost unanimous vote.”

Mr. Willkie rejected suggestions that Congress should provide billions of dollars in credits and said he did not feel that credits alone would provide the effective and immediate aid necessary.

“The problem,” he added, “is rather the immediate disposition of certain equipment, much of which cannot be purchased because it is owned by the United States Government. Under the domestic laws at present enforced, the United States is unable to deliver such equipment to a belligerent without a cumbersome and length}' subterfuge. If we do adopt the policy of aid for Britain. above all it is necessary to make the aid effective. Rendering ineffective aid would be disastrous. It would give Hitler just as good a pretext against us as effective aid. but if our aid is ineffective. Britain may go down.”