The Evening Post WELLINGTON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1945.

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 148, 20 December 1945, Page 6

The Evening Post WELLINGTON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1945.

THE DARK DAYS OF' 1941

In twentieth century wars of

aggression, American support for Britain has been consistent, and, during portions of those two wars, has also been active. But the far-flung character of the British Empire, its autonomous nations and its nonautonomous dependencies, their raw materials, tariffs, and trade relations, have always presented, and still present, a problem for American public opinion. For instance, in' August, 1941, three or four months before Japan's treacherous aggression brought America actively and openly into World War 11, President Roosevelt failed to induce Mr. Churchill to consent "to the United States proposal to promise all peoples free and equal access to the markets and raw materials' of* the world"—that is, to raw materials "needed for the prosperity" of other countries. The American proposal aimed primarily at free and equal access to the raw materials not of the autonomous nations of the Empire but of the dependencies and Crown colonies; an example of the whole issue was, and is, Malayan rubber, the production of which had been restricted between the two World Wars, but numerous ofher tropic and semi-tropic products also

enter into the question of free access. Advancing from this near-defeat year 1941 to the present victory year, one again finds trade and economic issues calling for compromise between these two leading members of the English-

speaking peoples. Quite recently the British Government has been concerned to prevent the American loan from being secured at the price of abandonment of Empire preferential duties. To bargain over reduction of preferential duties in return for American tariff reduction is one thing. It would be quite another thing to buy a loan from America with unconditional Empire or Dominions trade concessions, without regard to America's own tariff, which was a prime handicap on world trade between the two wars.

It is easier for the British Labour Government today to take a stand on Empire and Commonwealth trade policy and tariff rights than it was for Mr. Churchill, in August, 1941, to refuse to guarantee to his American friend and helper "free and equal access" to the world's raw materials. By August, 1941, Britain had ceased to fight absolutely alone, because Hitler,, a few weeks before, had given Britain a Russian partner; but already the Russian partner was sustaining those military disasters to which the defenders against a German land invasion were doomed at that stage of the Continental struggle. During that sad August Churchill could hope for little from Russia; he could not foresee that, within another four months, Japan, like Hitler, would give him another partner, America herself; and he knew that, at the moment, Britain stood very close to defeat —indeed, in such a bad position that a weaker British Prime Minister might have given President Roosevelt everything which an America, ever seeking to unlock British Empire trade preserves, might have asked. The more one learns about Britain's weakness at that critical time, and about Churchill's firmness, the more one marvels. In August, 1941-, states a message published today from Washington, the war was going so badly for Britain that "the British were reconciled to war with Spain and the loss of. Gibraltar," which meant that Hitler would have closed the western gate of the Mediterranean Sea, and would have placed a Gibraltar Straits barrier right across tho route of the American-British invasion of Algeria (1942-43). For whatever help America might offer in such a plight, Churchill in 1941 was in a poor position to refuse anything that America might ask. And yet, according to the evidence of Sumner Welles, Churchill did refuse.

This very interesting story, as relayed from Washington, is based on secret memoranda written in August, 1941, by Sumner Welles, then UnderSecretary of State, who was in attendance on President Roosevelt during the Roosevelt-Churchill meeting at I sea, from which, it is. added, emerged j the Atlantic, Charter. But the future, as embodied in the Charter, was not so compelling as the present, for the prospect of Hitler's occupation of Spain and Gibraltar compelled Churchill and Roosevelt to consider the occupation of the Azores Islands (Portuguese). America had long been helping Britain with the arsenal policy and with transferred destroyers, but more help was needed. According to the Sumner Welles memoranda' (which come by a round-about route, having now been inserted into the record of the Pearl Harbour Inquiry), "Roosevelt tentatively agreed that the United States should seize the Azores as part of a plan to maintain the southern Atlantic convoy route" from the Americas to Britain. No doubt the need for implementing that tentative agreement presently disappeared as the German armies became more and more involved in Russia and less and less inclined to march through Spain to Gibraltar. But in August, 1941, the apparent danger to Gibraltar was no doubt sufficient to warrant America's! consideration of a more active j American policy in the Atlantic, and (as quid pro quo) of assurances from Britain concerning Empire raw materials. Although the heart of the Empire was itself in deadly danger, Mr. Churchill did not hesitate in 1940 to divert precious military resources, via the Cape of Good Hope route, to Egypt; and he did not hesitate in 1941 to refuse to commit himself to "free and equal access" to raw materials. Now that the war crisis is over, and now that tariffs and trade restrictions can be discussed on an equal basis, access to raw materials remains a live international issue. But it was not to be traded in 1941 as a bargaining point.

As Churchill said on another- occasion, he did not become the King's Prime Minister in order to liquidate the British Empire. And the years of near-defeat were not the time to evolve a United Nations International Order. That is why the Atlantic Charter had to be written in generalisations-r-a mere shadow of the work of the San Francisco Conference.