VIRTUAL REPEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1941, Page 5

VIRTUAL REPEAL

OF NEUTRALITY ACT URGED BY U.S.A. SENATE COMMITTEE. 1 CONDITIONS OF FULL AID TO DEMOCRACIES. WASHINGTON, October 26. Virtual repeal of the Neutrality Act was essential to combat Germany’s unrestrict- ■ cd sea warfare and would ' not change the United States’ i neutral status, declared the majority report of the Senate i Foreign Relations Committee referring to the Neutrality , Dill. ’ The report added that it appeared ’ to be a fixed policy of the Nazis to ’ aim to sink American merchant ships wherever found. ' “If the United States prohibits its ’ ships from entering any area where the possibility of being sunk exists,” it continues, “it would logically follow : that we would prohibit our ships going ; anywhere except by permission of the Nazi submarine commanders.” The report said the United States was inconsistent in pledging full aid to the democracies and then adhering to the restrictions standing directly in the way of carrying out the promise. ARMING OF SHIPS VIEWS OF MR CORDELL HULL. COLONEL KNOX DENOUNCES ACT. (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) WASHINGTON, October 27. “The arming of merchantmen might be described as leading to war, but the situation is that we will not be in the war until Hitler decrees that we shali,” said Mr Cordell Hull (Secretary of State), giving evidence before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on neutrality revision. “The United States does not intend to rush out somewhere and get into real war,” he added. “We are now pursuing a course dictated by the law of self-defence. We shall pursue a somewhat resolute course, not enough to be foolhardy and get unnecessarily into trouble, but enough to command the respect one brave man has for another.” Referring to German plans to invade Britain, Mr Hull said the Nazis had platforms erected in Berlin for the greatest victory celebration in history, but United States aid to England had helped to induce the German generals finally to call off the invasion. A message from Detroit says the repeal of the Neutrality Act was urged by Colonel Knox (Secretary for the Navy) in a speech at a Navy Day celebration. “The Act imperils the security of the United States and jeopardises the safety of the nations fighting the Germans,” he said. “We neither think nor act as a neutral. It is only honest to make laws consistent with our action. The risk we incur in arming our ships and sending them to sea is far less than the risk of allowing England to lose the war.”

Colonel Knox called for national solidarity and unity in order that the United States might escape France’s fate. “If we need resolution,” he added, “let us recall France’s pitiful situation, where Marshal Petain is pleading with the people to avoid still more bloody reprisals by more thorough.subservi-' ence to the conquerors.” Denouncing isolationism, Colonel Knox said Russia had practised the policy first, only to find that it proved disastrous.

The United States, he said, had 346 combatant ships commissioned, 345 under construction and an auxiliary fleet of 323, with a prospective addition of 200. It had a Fleet Air Arm of 4,535 planes, with 5,832 under construction. The Navy was aiming at 17,000 trained pilots.