The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. TUESDAY. MAY 27, 1941. AMERICAN HELP

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 123, 27 May 1941, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

TUESDAY. MAY 27, 1941. AMERICAN HELP

For the caute that lacks agristanoc, For the inrorxg that weeds resistanot, For the future in the distance, And the good, that we can do.

It was on March 15 that President Roosevelt, having a few days before signed the Lease-or-Lend Act, proclaimed that its enactment meant "the end of attempts at appeasement in our land," that it meant that the United States was launching a "total effort" to help the democracies, and that speed, "speed now," was allimportant. In words which echoed round the world he pledged the United States to send to Britain ships, aeroplanes, food, tanks, guns, munitions and supplies of all kinds. Britain and the other democracies, he said, needed these supplies, and they would "get" them. There is not the slightest doubt that the President's pledge was and is endorsed by the great majority of Americans, nor any doubt that great and growing efforts are being made to fulfil it. But the developments of war have been faster than the efforts of American industry. Since the President spoke Greece has been fought for, and lost, and a desperate fight is even now being waged for Crete. General Wavell's forces have been forced back to the borders of Egypt. British power has been challenged in Iraq. The Vichy Government is openly attempting to take France into the Nazi camp, and in consequence of the successful German campaign in the Balkans and the wretched subservience of the French in Syria Britain's whole position in the Middle East is gravely threatened. Meanwhile the bombing of Britain has gone on, and the grim, silent battle of the Atlantic continues unabated. In one phase of that battle a German naval squadron, off the coast of Greenland, has sunk Britain's largest battleship. These are major developments since the President spoke; others are in prospect. What will he say when he speaks to the American people to-night?

If the President says what we would have him say he will inform the American people that none of these developments of the war in April and May of 1941 can be effectually counteracted by American supplies in full flood in 1912: that the Royal Navy cannot effectually do three jobs at once— maintain the blockade of Europe, sustain British armies in the Middle East and elsewhere and convoy merchant shipping; that unless the United States can do more, now, Britain will be forced to fight a purely defensive war for many months to come—and that therefore the United States should and will decide now to use her Navy to relieve the British by convoying goods across the Atlantic. He will point out that the carefully-timed warning of Admiral Raeder means that if the United States so decides it will, from the moment it acts, risk war with Germany, but this risk must be taken. These things he may say; but he is unlikely to do so. There is unfortunately little reason to think that the majority of the American people have in their thinking advanced beyond the stage of "all aid—short of war," and the President is unlikely to fly in the face of that sentiment. However, he will undoubtedly try to change it. It may be that he will try to change it in a single speech. On the whole, it is more likely that he will announce further measures to aid Britain indirectly, instead of directly. These measures may include the use of the United States Navy in an extended zone in the Atlantic, so that British warships can be relieved of duty in that zone. He will be careful to represent any action as designed to serve American interests first and directly, British interests second and indirectly. Of this we cannot complain; all we may hope is that his view of the sphere of American interests will be as wide as the world.