AGAINST WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 7

AGAINST WAR.

DEMOCRATIC NATIONS. A STARTLING PROPOSAL. REPLY TO DICTATORSHIPS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, March 30. A united front by the United States, Great Britain and France against dictatorship nations was proposed by Representative William I. Sirovich, Democrat of New York, in a resolution placed before the House in Washington, in one of the most startling moves recently in the United States.

The resolution proposed that the United States cancel all war debts of (ireat Britain and France, but "force" dictatorship nations to pay their obligations in full. "The next great world war, unless steps are taken to prevent it, will be between the nations of democracy and the nations of Fascism," said Mr. Sirovich. "I propose a method to prevent that war by joining the great democratic nations of the United States, Great Britain and France in defence of democracy and liberty." He asserted that his plan would prevent a threatened clash between demouracy and Fascism which might engulf the United Stares.

"When Woodrow Wilson issued his famous fourteen points to the world, the German Empire disintegrated," said Rep. Sirovich. "If the German people know that 400,000,000 people in Great Britain, France and the United States are banded together to resist the aggression of a central empire, including Germany, Austria and their allies, with only

120.000.000. they will end Hitlerism, and there will be no world war. "Great Britain is the first line of defence of American democracy,'' Mr. Sirovich said, "because the destruction of the British Kmpire by autocratic forces would make America their next object of attack." Curb On War. The resolution declared: "A new world war can best be prevented by demonstrating that the United States' wealth and resources are at the disposal of the great democracy, and that America would never permit that they be overwhelmed by the militarised force of the 'e\v autocratic dictatorship. "Anglo-Saxon civilisation, which is to-day the sole guardian of true democracy, true culture and true Christianity, is dependent upon the continued existence of the British Empire." He said he would request immediate hearings on the resolution.

The Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, has suggested to Great Britain the summoning 0 f European powers to a new peace conference to halt the Old World's alarming drift toward war. This was disclosed when secret testimony by the Secretary of State before a House Appropriations Sub-committee was made public in Washington.

Unless Europe halts its staggering arms expenditures, readjusts its finance! on a more sound basis, and opens its frontiers to a freer flow of trade with other parts of the world, Mr. Hull said gravely: "If a military catastrophe does not occur within another year or so, it is almost inevitable there may be an economic catastrophe, and the one is nearly as bad in its effects on us—the United States—as the other."

Mr. HuU made no reference to participation by the United States in an international peace conference.