NEUTRALITY LAW

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 November 1941, Page 5

NEUTRALITY LAW

SPEEDY REVISION SOUGHT BY ROOSEVELT AND PROMISED BY SENATE LEADERS. ARMING OF MERCHANT SHIPS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, November 5. Administration leaders conferred with President Roosevelt, who emphasised his desire for a speedy enactment of the neutrality revision measure, and the leaders assured the President that the Senate would act before the end of the week. A substantial majority, they said, would favour the measure. Speaking in the Senate debate, the leading isolationist, Senator Wheeler, said that the passage of the neutrality revision would mean war soon. He suggested that instead of convoying and sending merchantmen into the war zones the United States might transfer warships to Britain. That would be a small price to pay if it would avoid war.

The Secretary of the Navy, Colonel Knox, at a Press conference, recommended that all American merchantmen be armed with guns. He challenged the contentions of his opponents that the measure would be ineffective in reducing shipping losses, and said that guns on the merchantmen would compel submarines to remain submerged, where they were less efficient than on the surface. Submarines were now less vulnerable to depth-charges, but they had no love for ships with guns, he added. A survey by Dr George Gallup’s Institute of Public Opinion, the result of which was announced in New York today, gave 61 per cent of Americans in favour of sending American ships to Britain, compared with 54 per cent in mid-October, and 81 per cent in favour of arming merchant ships, compared with 72 per cent a few weks ago.