ECONOMIC WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 July 1941, Page 8

ECONOMIC WAR

ACTION BY UNITED SPATES AGAINST PERSONS & FIRMS IN LATIN AMERICA. MORE THAN 1800 BLACKLISTED. ■ (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) WASHINGTON, July 17. President Roosevelt has issued a proclamation blacklisting more than 1800 persons and firms in Latin America suspected of acting directly or indirectly as agents of the Axis. The move freezes the assets of specified firms and individuals in the United States. It also means that articles covered by the existing rigid export control system cannot be exported to these firms except under special licence, which is not likely to be granted. The list takes the United States a ( long step in the economic war against the Axis, and is a major move to freeze out the Axis from Latin American markets. Included in the blacklist is the Czechoslovakian Bata Shoe Company branches in Argentina, Brazil and Haiti, and also Transocean News and a number of Axis controlled airlines. The freezing of the assets of the firms blacklisted is expected to sever the financial link between Axis propaganda agents in Latin America and their United States sources of dollar exchange. ATLANTIC BASES. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Mr Forrestal, announced that the naval base in Newfoundland would be formally commissioned today, marking the first time the United States has established a base in British possessions in the western Atlantic. The Trinidad base would be commissioned on August 1, he said. An indication that the Administration is now ready to force industry on to a war basis was given by the Secretary of the Treasury. Mr Morgenthau, in a statement to the Press that non-defence manufacturing must immediately be restricted if defence production was to reach the desired levels. He cited the motor industry as a glaring example of the misuse of urgently needed facilities, “Some sort of civilian rationing should be instituted immediately,” he declared. The House of Representatives passed a Bill authorising the Navy to undertake a 585,000,000.d011ar scheme for the expansion of shipbuilding, repair and ordnance manufacturing facilities for Government and private establishments. The Senate Military Affairs Committee approved a compromise Bill authorising the President to requisition military or naval equipment, tools, supplies and machinery needed for defence. The chairman, Senator Reynolds, explained that the earlier Bill would have authorised the seizure of any property. This was considered . too sweeping. BOMBERS FOR BRITAIN. The thousandth bomber to be made for Britain at the Lockheed aeroplane factory, California, was being completed there today, while in another part of the plant the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, was thanking the workers for helping Britain.