AMERICA AND THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 36, 12 February 1940, Page 6

AMERICA AND THE WAR

Two distinct and separate purposes are officially attached to the initiatives of the United States Government towards the war in Europe, announced in the cable news today. The steps initiated by America are, first, diplomatic conversations with several neutral States, announced by the Secretary of State (Mr. Cordell Hull), and, second, the dispatch of Mr. Sumner Welles, Assistant Secretary of State to Europe, announced by President Roosevelt. The purpose of the conversations is, briefly and broadly described in the cable message, to discuss the "eventual restoration of world peace on a sound and lasting basis." Mr. Welles's mission is to make "a personal survey of conditions in Italy, Germany, Britain, and France." Mr. Welles, who will sail for Italy on February 17, has been instructed to "make no proposals or commitments in the name of the United States, the visit being solely for the purpose of advising the President and the Secretary of State on present conditions in Europe." Similarly, it is stated by Mr, Hull, that the conversations involve no plan or plans, but are in the nature of preliminary inquiries relating to a sound international economic system and simultaneously a world-wide reducti n of armaments. Then follows an important proviso: Matters involving the present war conditions are not part of these preliminary conversations, which can be extended to the belligerents in so far as they involve these two common problems of future peace. It is clear then that the President and the Secretary of State, while desiring to hold. America still free from European "entanglements," are seizing the opportunity of the present comparative calm to find out through Mr, Sumner Welles what prospects, if any, there are of peace, and through the conversations with neutrals what kind of a peace would be acceptable to them on a permanent foundation, or, in Mr. Hull's words, the purpose is to determine "an equitable economic basis for peace after the war is ended." From this point of view, America's initiatives are complementary to each other. So far as the Allies are concerned, both moves will be welcomed. This is stated semi-officially in Paris, with the reminder that "there is no question of Mr. Welles acting as mediator." A cordial welcome is also assured officially in London, and the newspapers of both France and Briiain emphasise the point. Neither country has anything to conceal or to be ashamed of in the course of action pursued. Official circles in London declare that Mr. Welles "may be sure of receiving all the information with which the British Government can provide him to enable President Roosevelt to form a clearer view of the European situation." As the "Daily Telegraph" points out: "The effects of five months of war on the determination of the British and French people must be well known to the President." Tlie vanity of appeals to Herr Hitler, including the President's own, must also be apparent, though possibly Mr. Welles may find that the inexorable movement of events and the pressure of circumstance may have wrought a change since. Tn any event, the visitor from the New World will learn something <irst-hand about the brutality of German warfare nnd its effect on neutral nations. But the "Daily Telegraph" fully expresses the feel'na: of the Allied peoples when it ■»dds a concluding sentence: "The Prpsidpnt must be well aware that we will not abate » letter of our terms for peace." The first and foremost is that to which British Labour has given most emphatic expression in the words of Mr. Herbert Morrison, M.P., in a speech at Sheffield on Saturday: "With the neople of France we entered the war to smash the Nazi regime, which had become a nuisance to Europe •renerallv as well as a curse to Germany. We cannot compromise with | that regime: we cannot make peace with it." This is the primary war aim endorsed by the peoples of Britain and France and their Empires, '