AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21196, 20 August 1940, Page 4

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Mr Wendell Willkie’s speech when accepting the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States gave an interesting insight into the politics and public opinion of the American people. Proof that the great weight of American opinion favours all possible assistance for Britain is provided by the fact that Mr Willkie in his search for points of difference from the policy of Mr Roosevelt has found it wise to agree with the President on that point. Had public opinion been otherwise Mr Willkie would have seized upon it as a plank in his electioneering platform. Indeed Mr Willkie has found it almost impossible to oppose the present foreign policy, except that he accuses Mr Roosevelt of taking undue risks of embroiling the United States in the war and of failing to take the American people into his confidence. On most other points the two candidates agree. They would both assist Britain by all means short of active participation in the war, they would reconstruct America’s defences as quickly as possible, they would adopt some form of conscription to fill the ranks of the fighting services and generally prepare the country to resist the German attack upon the “democratic way of life” as soon as it encroaches upon the rights of the United States. Mr Willkie must look to the domestic policy to find a contrast between his platform and that of Mr Roosevelt, and there he attacks the New Deal in the hope of turning a majority of the people against Mr Roosevelt. That is America’s concern. The British Empire is most keenly interested in the foreign policy, and on the statements of the two candidates so far it will hope that Mr Roosevelt makes history by occupying the White House for the third term. Mr Roosevelt from his long experience of administering the foreign policy has adopted a palpably more realistic attitude towards the danger to which the United States as w r ell as the rest of the democratic world is exposed. In plain words, he is nearer to American intervention than is Mr Willkie, for the simple reason that he realises it is unwise and unfair for the United States to shelter behind Britain in this great struggle which so intimately concerns them both.