AMERICA’S NEUTRALITY

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20922, 29 September 1939, Page 6

AMERICA’S NEUTRALITY

KEEP OUT OF WAR ADMINISTRATION’S PROPOSALS SUGGESTED SAFETY ZONE (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 In a broadcast address to the nation, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Key Pittman defended the Administration’s neutrality proposals as a fair and intelligently contrived plan to keep the country out of war. The present statute was far from neutral, he said. Senator Pittman denied that repeal of the embargo would place the United States in the position of helping Britain and France, since Germany’s allies Italy and Russia were not declared belligerents, and could import whatever they desired. PANAMA, Sept. 27 The text has been revealed of the programme designed to keep the European war away from the Americas, proposed by the United States Assistant-Secretary of State, Mr Sumner Welles, at the Pan-American Conference. The suggested safety zone extends over 300 miles off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North and South America, including the British-owned Falkland Islands, which Argentina also claims. The line of the proposed zone will start off Passamaquoddy Bay, thence southward along the 60th meridian of longitude to a point off Southern Florida; thence south-east to the 24th meridian of longitude off St. Paul Isle; southward along the 24th meridian of longitude to Trinidad Island; south-westerly to a point off Cape Horn; thence it will follow the 58th parallel of south latitude to the 80th meridian of west longitude, taking in all Tierra del Fuego; north-west to the 97th meridian of longitude at the Equator, including the Galapagos Islands; north-westerly to the 120th meridian of longitude at latitude 15 degrees north; and along the 136th meridian of longitude to a point off the border between Canada and the United States.