FOOD RELIEF

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 February 1941, Page 5

FOOD RELIEF

IN OCCUPIED COUNTRIES AMERICAN GOVERNMENT TAKING NO PART. • REJECTION OF HOOVER PLAN. I 'By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON. February 17. Placing the full responsibility on Germany for the feeding of the people of the Nazi-occupied countries, the Assistant Secretary of State. Mr. Sumner Welles, said that the Government of the United States would take no part in Mr. Hoover's new experimental plan for food relief in Belgium. BRITISH VIEWS COMPLEX AND DIFFICULT PROBLEM. DANGER OF POSTPONING VICTORY. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. February 17. The Hoover plan might recommend itself if the necessity utensils and food were obtained in Europe and paid for with dollars issued by American banks in Germany and at present blocked by Nazis. But again, the problem cannot be so easily simplified, for Mr. Hoover suggests that soup kitchens should be established as an experiment in Belgium "to see whether the plan can be carried out without military advantage to either side in the war." The civilian and miltary populations of a country are now so difficult to differentiate in a war effort that consideration of such an experiment must include such factors as the present German use of Belgium as a base against Britain and ’he conscription of Belgian workers under Nazi masters. Ample evidence is available that the enslaved people themselves would regret any step, even actuated by the best of motives, which though seemingly undertaken to help them, would indirectly postpone Britain's victory and consequently their own freedom as nationals.