DEFENCE CANNOT GIVE SECURITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 24, 29 January 1938, Page 9

DEFENCE CANNOT GIVE SECURITY.

PEACE WORK VAIN. Foe Must Be Kept Beyond Striking Distance. JfAVY INCREASE 20 PER CENT. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 1O a.m.) NEW YORK, January 28. President Roosevelt in his special message, warned Congress that America's national defence was inadequate for security. He called for an 800,000,000-dollar, long-term naval building programme, with an immediate start on two additional battleships and two cruisers*. Hβ »Teo asked for additions of over 20,000,000 to the 1,000,000,000-dollar defence programme for 1939. Up to the present, he said, the Government had failed to secure agreement among nations for limitation of armaments and to end aggression. Until ■uch agreement was reached they were compelled to think of national safety. Hβ recommended a seven-point defence programme, and asked, in view of war alarms, that Congress enact legislation , eliminating profiteering in any future war and to equalise war burdens/ as far as possible.

Adequate defence, the President continued, involved simultaneous defence in •very part. The United States could not assume that danger would be limited to one ocean and. could not be certain that the connecting link in the Panama Canal would be safe. "We must keep a potential enemy many hundreds of miles away from our continental limits," Mr. Roosevelt declared. The arms proposals were designed solely for defence and to implement the nation's efforts for world peace. Seven-Point Programme. Specifically and solely because of the piling up of additional land and sea armaments by other countries involving a threat to world peace and security, he recommended the following defence programme:— (1) Authorisation eT 8,800,000-dollar Army antiaircraft additions with 6,800,000 dollars for 1939. (2) Increased appropriation for enlarging the Army enlisted reserve. (3) Authorisation of 6,080,000 dollars for Army plant and material. (4) Increased Army munitions reserves. (5) Authorisation of a flat 20 per cent increase in naval strength. (6) Immediate start on two battleships and two cruisers. (7) An appropriation of 15,000,000 dollars for experimental naval vessels. "It is necessary for us to realise that World conditions to-day have resulted too often in discarding ithose principles end treaties which underlie international law and order," the message continued, "and in the entrance of many new factors into the actual conduct of war. National Defence Inadequate. " "It is our clear duty to further every effort toward peace, but simultaneously to protect our nation, and it is my constitutional duty to report to Congress that our national defence is, in the light of the increasing armaments of other nations, inadequate for the purposes of national security and requires increase for that reason. "The proportion of the cost of our military and naval forces to the total income of our citizens or the total cost of government is far lower than any other great nation. "It is with the deepest regret that I report to you that armaments are increasing to-day at an unprecedented and alarming rate. It is an ominous fact that at least one-fourth of the world's population is involved in merciless, devastating conflict despite the fact that most people in those countries, including those where conflict rages, wish to live at peace."

Anions points of special significance in thp first messape was the statement that "It is a well-known fact that the .American standard of livinjr makes our ships, guns and 'planes cost more to build than those of any other nation." "Despite the need bf the United States for rearmament," he said, "America will not cease to search for peace," and the President added that he was not without hope of adueviog it,