Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 9, 1941. IN THE WAR, BUT NOT AT WAR.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 May 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 9, 1941. IN THE WAR, BUT NOT AT WAR.

0N top of all that has gone before, the memorable speech by the American Secretary for War (Air Stimson) reported on AVedne.sday—sl speech in which lie advocated the use of the United States Navy to safeguard shipments to Britain —might easily be read as implying that the United States is about lo miter the war as a belligerent. In this war, American neutrality, as that term used lo be understood, has long been a thing of the past. The Lease and Lend Bill as a whole, not to speak of detail provisions like those made for the repair ol British warships in American navy yards and the construction ot new warships for Britain, is flatly at variance with neutrality. President Itoosevelt Ims called upon the American people to throw their resources unreservedly into the scale m support of Britain arid her allies and against the totalitarian aggressors. lie has proclaimed. too, as have many other representative Americans, that Britain is lighting the battle of the United Slates and that of all free humanity as well as her own. Now Air Stimson’s advocacy of I In 1 use of the American Navy lo ensure the safe delivery of war shipments lo Britain has been approved warmly by Air Wendell Willkie, by the United Slates Secretary for the Navy, Colonel Knox, and by leading American newspapers. All this, as has been said, might easily be taken to imply that the United States is on the point of taking the final step towards belligerent status. In fact, however, that is not necessarily implied, though it is, of course, a. possibility. The existing relationship bet.ween the United States and Germany is one of the most remarkable, of which there is any record in the history of nations. In adopting the policy advocated by Air Stimson, the United States rather obviously would be inviting or challenging a declaration of war by Germany. That challenge was issued, however, at a much earlier stage in the development of the American aid to Britain policy. Germany did not declare war then and it is not to be taken for granted that she will be impelled to do so even by the spectacle of lhe American Navy guarding and protecting Atlantic convoys.

American support of Britain and her allies has already gone so far that some experts in Washington are said to be ready to argue —and very convincingly too—that the United States is already at war with Germany. Exponents of this view contend that what a nation does is much more important than what its diplomats says. They brush aside as unimportant the facts that there has been no declaration of war and that although neither nation is now represented by an ambassador in the other’s capital, each is still represented by a charge d’affaires. Against this it is maintained, a Washington correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor” (Mr Joseph G. Harrison) wrote recently, that the United States and Germany are not at war and doubt is expressed if the two nations'ever will be at war. The main contention of those supporting this point ol view, Mr Harrison said, is that neither Germany nor the United States wishes to see the latter enter the conflict. Take the question of convoys as an example (he added). Suppose the United States started convoying goods to Britain this spring. Would that automatically mean a full-dress war with Germany? Not according to a widely-held view here. It is held that Germany would sink as many convoyed ships and their convoyers as it could, but that it would .take no other action against the United States. And the reason is Germany’s realisation that an actual, de jure state of war would force this country into a rush of armament-building that it can hardly hope to attain without the stimulus of belligerency. While the present-day masters of Germany have broken with most tradition, they have not forgotten that Germany made a fatal mistake in 1917. when it assumed that America would be less dangerous as a belligerent than as a pro-Allied non-belligerent. . . . German newspapers have chorused that Germany wants no war with the United States and that a conflict can come only from a deliberate American manoeuvre into it.

The consideration governing United States policy no doubt will be that of giving the democracies at war the speediest and most effective help that is possible. It is widely believed, both in lhe United States and Britain, that a maximum delivery of American war supplies to Britain, provided the delivery is safely completed, is the best means of ensuring -and hastening the victory of the democracies. It is therefore possible that the American Navy may undertake the task advocated by Mr Stimson and that an outright declaration of war between the United States and Germany may yet be avoided. What really matters is that the Unite] States is laced by a golden opportunity at once of safeguarding its own liberties and of assisting and strengthening immensely the war effort of Britain and her allies by using its fleet to protect Atlantic' convoys. Whether this is or is not likely to entail a formal declaration of war by the United States or by Germany may very reasonably be regarded as of secondary importance.