DEFENCE PACT URGED

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 283, 24 August 1940, Page 5

DEFENCE PACT URGED

United States, Canada, New Zealand And Australia NEW YORK SUGGESTION NEW YORK, August 11. Urging the adoption of recent suggestions for a defence pact between the * United States and Canada, Major Fielding Eliot, military commentator for the New. York “Herald-Tribune,” says that the United States should not forget the Pacific, and that what can be done with Canada can also be done with Australia and New Zealand. He points out that as a restraint on Japanese expansionist policy, a United States fleet at Hawaii is one thing, but a United States fleet, based on Australian ports, and perhaps Singapore/ is quite different, especially if the United States has the support of such British and Dutch cruisers, submarines, and aircraft as remain in those waters. “Thus,” Major Eliot adds, ’“a defence pact with Canada would open the door to a much wider policy whien might go a long way toward restraining the conquerors in ■ Europe and Asia, and putting in the best possible use sea-power, which has ever been the sword and shield of, freedom against the advance of tyranny. “We need not declare war, but we can, however, enjoy some of the privileges of 'non-belligerency and moral belligerency’- as others do. We need riot stand with our hands tied with legal red tape while civilization is destroyed by cynical conquerors, who have not the least regard for the tenets of right and justice.”