FREE TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 32, 8 February 1939, Page 11

FREE TRADE.

IN WAR MATERIALS. U.S. Refused Arms Traffic Control in 1923. SECRET PAPERS REVEALED. United Press Association. —Copyright. (Received 10.30 a.m.) WASHINGTON, February 7. Hifherto unpublished papers of the State Department for 1923 were released to-day. They reveal that the United States adopted a policy of free trade in armaments during President Harding's administration. The papers disclose that the United States refused to join in an international agreement propoe&l by the League of Nations for control of the arms traffic, and insisted on freedom of international trade in armaments because America was dependent almost entirely on the private manufacture of munitions. The Secretary for War, Mr. Weeks, commented that the curtailment of private manufacture would work disadvantageously for the United States. Because they were released at the height of the controversy over the* sale of aircraft to Britain and France the documents are widely published in the Press, which also gives prominence to a warning from Mr. Emery Smith, War Industries Board Commissioner in 1919, that the United States could not enter a major war because of lack of scrap iron, and pointing out that 12,000,000 tons were exported in the last five years.

He commented: "Without America's scrap iron there would not be a SinoJapanese war or a bellicose European situation. The childish neutrality cloak has been used to salve our enemies and destroy our friends, at the same time stripping America of its natural war protection." He added that the carrying on of war now is a "virtual financial impossibility, because other countries use scrap while the United States uses newly-mined iron, quadrupling the cost of heavy armaments." Mr. Smith urged an immediate ban on all metallic war material. President Roosevelt's foreign policy is likely to be under fire immediately Congress resumes to-morrow. It ie significant that critics have not received open support from the Republican party leaders. It is understood the latter feel that the time is inappropriate to attack the policy because of the popularity of the defence programme. The leaders are said to feel that assailing one is assailing the other. However, there will not be any lack of isolationist spokesmen. One of the leading isolationists, Senator Bridges, declared to-night that keeping out of war was the consummate wish of all straight thinking Americans. "Twenty-two years ago," lie said, "we found that to Teform Europe we must permanently police it. We helped to rid the German people of the Kaiser and they got Herr Hitler. Should we relieve them of him the chances are that in another 20 years we would see an even more dangerous leadership. The solution of Europe's problems lies in the hands of the people of Europe. ,,