ONLY AN EXCUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 184, 7 August 1939, Page 8

ONLY AN EXCUSE.

WAR DEBTS PLAINT.

USE BY UNITED STATES.

BOLSTERING UP ISOLATION,

Using the non-payment of British war debts to bolster up their attitude of isolation, Americans were determined not to become involved in another war, said Mr. George Fitzpatrick, a wellknown Sydney business man, who recently toured the United States.

"They pointed out to me that England has sent for investment to America a eum computed by Mr. Hoover, formerly President, at 40,000,000 dollars," Mr. Fitzpatrick said. They also pointed out that, while Britain had not paid her debts to their country, she had provided millions of dollars to European countries, to South America and to the Chinese.

"They are not really concerned about this non-payment of moneys owing to them. They are lining: the fact as an excuse for their attitude towards the of the world. Mr. Hoover, "who knows Australia Letter than most Americans, has 'come out flat-footed.' in his opposition to America becoming embroiled in trouble overseas. He is paying that no price is too great to pay for the prcst rvation of peace. He admits that the Japanese are going in the -back door <>f the Philippines more quickly than America is passing out of the front door.

'•Mr. Hoover ir; prepared to -withdraw from the Philippines altogether, and also from the East. He says that the sacrifices which nocessarily ■would be made bv individuals should such a policy be adopted should be compensated by the American nation. He would prefer that to seeing America spend vast sums in a war waged to preserve right of individuals in those countries."

In his considered opinion. Mr. Fitzpatrick added, America would not support any of the democracies unless first of all America were attacked on her own soil —and that was unlikely. Those were not pleasant facts, but they had to be faced.

The United States, he declared, realised that the Aiktlo-Russian alliance was inevitable; but they were disappointed that that was the "fact. Britain was allied closely to France, and trance was" still more 'entangled on the Continent. If America was to become bound to Britain, Americans feared that their country would become enmeshed in the tans-led skein of the European situation. In anv case, tliey r did not like Russian politics.