Evening Post THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1941. THE PRESENT STRATEGIC MOMENT'

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1941, Page 8

Evening Post THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1941. THE PRESENT STRATEGIC MOMENT'

"If we should allow the present strategic moment to pass until the power of the British Navy is gone," said Mr. H. L. Stimson recently, "the power of our [United States] navy would become merely a secondary power instead of being the decisive arid winning power in the world contest. Is it conceivable that the American people would allow this to happen?" As the date on which Mr. | Stimson, as United States Secretary lof War, made this statement was May 6, nearly two months ago, Hitler and Goebbels are probably thinking 'that it is conceivable that the American people will allow a great strategic j moment to pass. Certainly President Roosevelt's two Republican Ministers of War and the Navy—Mr. Stimson and Colonel Knox—are doing as much as any Democrat to urge America to naval belligerency, but the American anti-belligerents now have the Russian war—a fullsized enigma—to use as pretext for a wait-and-see policy. But the vital factor is that Germany's sea offensive in the Battle of the Atlantic is unhampered by Germany's land offensive in Russia. Colonel Knox has just restated the fact that, in the absence of American naval intervention, huge shiploads of American arms are being consigned to the bottom 'of the Atlantic; and Germany is sinking three ships for every one that Britain and America can build.

When he spoke on May 6, as quoted above, Mr. Stimson made out a clear and unanswerable case for United States naval belligerency, for immediate intervention in the Atlantic by American warships as a ..guarantee of the delivery to Britain of American war supply cargoes. He said that Britain was the island fortress of America, and the British Navy was, the protector of . the United States from European attack. British naval protection for a century had saved America from immense expenditures of h^er own on naval defence and on land defences, some of which saved American money is now coming back to England in the form of American war supplies, but so long as the sup-

plies failed to be delivered, that policy (the American arsenal policy) was not enough. It was not enough for Britain's defence and therefore it was not enough for United States defence. For a century the Americans "had accommodated their whole method of life" to the assumption that there existed an England which could neither be invaded nor starved: but American naval intervention was necessary now to reinsure that assumption and the American safety resting thereon. Recognition of the fact that Britain's defence was America's defence had caused the United States Congress to provide billions for munitions for Britain'? use: • -

While we hold in our hands the instrument ready and able to make all these steps effective, shall we. now flinch and permit these munitions to be sunk in the Atlantic Ocean?

Answering his own question, Mr. Stimson affirmed that "our entire his tory shows no precedent to make such a supposition credible." . Relying "on the continuance of a sea power [Britain] of which we ourselves feel in no apprehension," we (the Americans) "have- built populous cities upon our sea-coast which are easily vulnerable to attack from the Atlantic Ocean." But today the British Isles, which have been a fortress against any despotic approach to [ our shores through the northern reaches of the Atlantic, are threatened both by attacks from the air and blockade from the sea. If their Government should fall, either 'from starvation or from attack, the British Fleet, i it survived at all. would have no adequate base for its continued operations. If the 3ritish Isles should fall, all of the great shipyards of Britain would pass into the hands of the aggressor nations, and their maritime shipbuilding capacity, thus augmented, would become six or seven times as large as that of the United States.

Shall the United States fleet, which today can intervene in the Battle of the Atlantic with decisive effect, be held back until the reduction of Britain's sea power has reduced the United States fleet to the status of a secondary factor instead of a decisive one? , Mr. Stimson contended that the possible defeat of Britain, now entirely preventable by American naval action, would leave the United States naval forces

quite unable to protect the Western Hemisphere from the overwhelming sea power which would then confront it. Even today the tonnage of the United States fleet is exceeded by the combined tonnage of the Axis Powers: and. with the enormous preponderance in building capacity which they would then have, command of the entire seas surrounding us would in time inevitably pass into their hands.

In this crystal clear language has the United States Secretary of War analysed "the present strategic moment" and exposed its perils for American ears, still being attacked by the aloofists, the Lindberghs, and

other such

Meanwhile, "the Glorious Fourth" is. &t hand, with its eighteenth century tradition. Neither in the eighteenth century nor in the nineteenth century did freedom, as conceived in Washington's day, stand in greater jeopardy than now. But Americans in general are not all Stimsons, or Knoxes, .or Cordell Hulls. While the prophet's role is theirs, the political manager's diffi-. cult task remains the President's heavy burden, and this must be remembered by the world at large as it waits t for the Fourth of July

broadcast,