CONFLICTING POLICIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1941, Page 6

CONFLICTING POLICIES

AID FROM UNITED STATES. Immediate unqualified and all-out aid in defeating Hitler is the prevailing determination in the United States, but it has not yet been organised into practical policy, writes the American correspondent of the London “Observer.’' For the policy is superimposed upon other policies carried over .from the day when buying time reigned over buying victory. That was the time when America put prime emphasis upon its own continental defence and aid to Britain- was merely a complement to rearmament on the scale necessary in case the British failed to beat Hitler. Foi’ the Army conscription was ordered on a plan destined to bring into being an army of four million men; for the Navy a two-ocean navy. These are the policies that still prevail, in spite of the elevation into'front of a policy aimed at beating Hitler now. And the swollen Army is taking tanks and other equipment that might be spared to the fighting democracies, and the shipyards are clogged with orders for a two-ocean Navy when they might be turning out merchantmen and corvettes for the British. The lack of fusion in policy has come to the fore recently, and a call has been heard in the press for a “priority in policy” which would really mobilise administrative action in the all-out effort to insure victory.