EMBARGO ON OIL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 250, 4 August 1941, Page 8

EMBARGO ON OIL

ij 1,00: NO SUPPLY FROM AMERICA. MR ROOSEVELT’S DECISION. * • • (United Press Association —Copyright.) WASHINGTON, August 1. Mr Roosevelt has stopped the export of petrol and oil to Japan. The embargo applies also to shipments destined for other places than the British Empire, the western .hemisphere, and other countries resisting aggression. The White- -House .announce! that the. action ha dr beeii-Taken in the interests of national defence. Excepting countries not affected by the embargo, the President’s order prohibits the exportation of motor fuels, oils suitable for Use in aircraft, and -creation of raw -stocks from which such products can be derived .The order also limits the exportation l of other petroleum products to the usual pre-war quantities, and provides for a pro rata issuing of licences on that basis. The United Press says that most diplomatic observers believe that the obvious implication of Mr Roosevelt’s petroleum embargo is that the Administration has definitely called a halt to" further Japanese expansion in the Pacific, and,Jias served as a warning that the United States is prepared for a Showdown if necessary. Tlie Office of Production Management placed pig iron under full rationing .control in the intere.\ L s., of the defence programme. Defence officials state that in order to overcome the shortage of scrap metal, railway companies will shortly .be asked to tear up hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles of unprofitable tracks. Several steel companies have launched campaigns to collect scrap metal. A similar aluminium drive is likely. The Office of Production Management has also frozen all stocks of silk in the United States. The manufacture of silk hosiery and fabrics.will be-suspended and 175,000 sillc workers will lose employment as a result of the silk, freezing order. All silk will be requisitioned for military usifrH'4 iffiV Secretary Navy (Colonel Frank Knox) said that he estimated Japan’s oil supplies as sufficient fo last her for from 14 to 16 months. The United States defence programme-:; .is reaching such proportions that it .is already taxing the nation’s industrial resources. The most seri-6uS-shortages are in steel, aluminium, and'oil—oil mainly because of the difficulty, of providing tankers. :Some concern has been caused by a statement by Mr Eugene Grace, president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, that the increasing scarcity of scrap steel and pig iron is likely to force a curtailment of. production unless new supplies are found. Mr Grace said that‘the nation was feeling .the pinch- of 10. years’ exports of scrap to Japan to feed the Japanese military machine. '. Industry and the. Government are discussing measures to cope with the shortage. - The British purchasing authorities have been asked to confine tlieir’.requests as far as possible to finished products rather than ingots and ;semi-finished steel. -