A SIGNIFICANT SIGN

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 81, 30 December 1940, Page 6

A SIGNIFICANT SIGN

The significance of the representations being made by people in Uruguay should not be overlooked. They are urging their Government to abandon neutrality and to adopt a policy iof non-belligerency, to be exercised in favour of Great Britain. Phey suggest that tle port of Montevideo should be made available to British naval forces, and there can be no doubt that it would be of immense value, as a base for the South Atlantic squadron. But the most important aspect is that of the friendly attitude of the people of the South American Republic. It shows, as probably nothing else could, that the British cause is strongly supported, and that the sympathies or the people are ranged with those fighting the battle for freedom. It is only necessarv to contrast the position today, with that which obtained in 1915,' after a year of war. In 1915 the United States Government, through its Ambassador in London, informed the British authorities that Washington would not recognize the validity of certain proceedings taken in British Prize Courts. Protests were made by several American States against the British blockade, lhe question of the freedom of the seas was discussed with some heat, and the feeling on the other side of the Atlantic was far from friendly. British statesmen had to recall the American doctrine of “ultimate destination,” and altogether diplomatic relations between Great Britain and several of the American republics were strained. It was in overcoming the difficulties created that the Foreign Minister of that day, then Sir Edward Grey, achieved his greatest success. It is when the position then is contrasted with that found today that the significance of the change becomes clear. Today, after a year or more of hostilities between Great Britain and Germany, the United States is following a policy designed to give, the British people the maximum assistance. There have been no difficulties regarding the blockade. United States destroyers have been transferred to the British flag. Aircraft and munitions are pouring across the Atlantic in increasing numbers and quantities. As direct loans are not at present legal the President has evolved a plan for lending Britain guns and other things. The South American Republics have been much more friendly, and now there is this evidence of the sympathy of the Uruguayan people. It is indeed significant. In the last great struggle it took the American people some years to‘discover that, as Buchan said: “In the last resort they had the same way of looking at the major matters of life” as had the British people. This time there is iio question of what an American writer has termed the “like-mindedness” of the British and the American nations. In the sphere of international relations Great Britain has cemented her friendships, and in those friendships lie potential sources of support that must be of increasing value as the struggle proceeds.