NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 145, 16 December 1939, Page 14

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

TEST OF SAFETY ZONE

ALLIED PLANE ORDERS

THE RULE OF SECRECY

The running fight between the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spec and the British cruisers gave point to the fears which the United States has had ever since the Declaration of Panama. That declaration 'created a 300-mile safety belt around the Americas which is theoretically to be kept clear of the dangers of war (the declaration said that the American republics would "insist that no hostile acts may be engaged in or bellicose activities carired out"), and since then Washington officials have seen it as a possible cause of conflict between their country and Germany. The belt was defined at a time when German sea raiding was still being carried out by submarines, and the advent of the surface raiders, with their greater range, immediately raised the problem of what Germany would do. The Declaration of Panamas which was subscribed to by the republics of North and South America, came near its first test last month when the British steamer Coulmore, en route from Philadelphia to England, reported an attack by a submarine just within the safety zone. United States naval patrol vessels and coastguard cutters rushed to the scene, but could find no trace of the merchantman. As the Americans were about to give up the search and set down the Coulmore as a casualty, she reported that slie was out of danger. This incident was significant because it provided evidence,, that naval vessels were under orders to speed to the scene of every reported attack on any vessel, belligerent*" or neutral, within the waters which the American republics have determined to preserve free from the perils of war. Thus the entry of the safety zone by one of the German pocket battleships, which was expected by Washington, was recognised as likely to be the real test of the Declaration of Panama, and when that occurred it was seen that +he United States, the principal Power concerned, and the one providing most of the patrolling forces, would have to find some means of "putting teeth into the plan" or abandon it. To reinforce the neu-1 trality patrol 54 aged destroyers, which j had been anchored at Philadelphia and San Diego, have been recommissioned. It was not expected that the i Germans would -ittack American ships, j but that the crisis would arrive be-1 cause of an attack on some other neutral ship, or belligerent ship within the area defined.