Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MAY 6, 1941. AMERICA MOVES ON.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, MAY 6, 1941. AMERICA MOVES ON.

gOME elements of caution appear still in the immediate policy and attitude of the United States towards the war. but they are of a kind in which Nazi Germany ami her allies will find little ground for comfort. A choice example appears in the report that a well-informed official in Washington disclosed that the Atlantic patrol (in which the whole United States Atlantic fleet is now engaged) has been ordered to avoid shooting at all costs short of getting sunk. The patrol, which is operating to within 1.5(10 miles radius of western British ports, is merely ordered .to broadcast the whereabouts of Axis ships, submarines and planes. No doubt these orders will be obeyed meticulously, lint what is likely to be the outcome of their being obeyed ? It seems by no means impossible that American warships, painstakingly and methodically broadcasting the whereabouts of Axis ships, submarines and planes, may find themselves becoming targets for bombs or torpedoes. The Nazis, indeed, have declared that any American or other ship entering the sphere of their so-called blockade operations will be torpedoed. On the first occasion on which an attempt is made to carry out that threat against' an American ship, its orders not to shoot will be converted automatically into orders to shoot, ft is in these conditions that the United States Atlantic patrol lias been established. With the orders not to shoot still in force, there are rising demands from diverse quarters in the United States that an end should be made of all half-measures where the safe conveyance of war materials Io Britain is in question. The president of Harvard ( Dr J. B. Conant), for example, has said that, the best hope of avoiding a later battle against desperate odds is that the United Slates should become a naval belligerent now. At the same time Hie national executive of the American Legion (the organisation of Great War veterans) lias passed a resolution urging the use of the United States Navy Io ensure the safe delivery of aid to Britain and Mr Wendell Willkie has informed President. Roosevelt I hat he favours outright. United States convoys to Britain instead, of the patrol plan. Apart from the fact that he lias shown himself cautiously intent on acting at all limes with the solid backing of his countrymen in each development of war policy, it is possible that President Roosevelt may see good tactical reasons for approaching by stages the full naval co-operation with Britain in the Atlantic which is now being advocated freely in the United States. Account has to lie taken, amongst oilier tilings,, of the situation in Hie Pacific. Il is conceivable, for example, that Japan may yet shrink' from making common cause with the Axis and going to war with the English-speaking nations. President Roosevelt, stated not long ago that war between the United States and .Japan would not impede the flow of American aid to Britain, but even if that view be accepted unreservedly, if is desirable in the interests of all parties, not least those of Japan, that the latter country should maintain her non-bellig-erent status. The circumstances in which United States naval co-operation with Britain develops may determine for Japan the issue of participation or non-partieipalion in the war. At the broadest view, there seems no longer to lie any doubt, that the United Stales is committed fully and finally to the faith declared by President Roosevelt when he spoke, on Sunday, at the dedication as a national shrine of the birthplace of the late President Woodrow Wilson—faith in democracy and in the truth taught by Woodrow Wilson that democracies cannot live in isolation, A simple faith in the freedom of democracy in the world, Air Roosevelt affirmed, “is Hie, kind of faith for which we have fought before; for the existence of which we are ever ready to fight again.’’ It is becoming plainer every day that although the isolationists of the United States are not silenced, their creed is rejected and dead. In the awakening of the American people Io the truth that democracies cannot live in isolation, hope appears, not only that the tight for justice and liberty will be carried to decisive victory, but that peace, when it has been re-established, will be safeguarded and a better future opened for humanity.