SPLENDID BARTER !

Grey River Argus, 10 September 1940, Page 10

SPLENDID BARTER !

bases for destroyers. RUGBY, September 7. Under such headings as “A Happy Agreement,” “Splendid Barter, “Fair Exchange*,” weekly journals nrint considered comment on the lease by Britain of sites for defence bases to the United States, and the transfer of U.S.A, destroyers to Britain. The “New Statesman” says: “It is not a business deal, but an imaginative agreement born of a esnsciousness of a common cause. Eacn nation recognises that now, and in future, it needs, and will need, the Noting that the free lease of the sites is for 99 years, it says: “As we read them they imply for three generations a parallelism in British and American foreign policy. We are brothers in arms—in war as in peace for centuries to come.” Mctual benefits of the arrangement are stressed by both “The Spectator and “Time and Tide.” The former writes:—“A striking feature of the arrangement indeed is that party benefits as much by what it gives as by what it gets, and i argues that that kind of accord is only possible between two Governments which start on terms of unclouded friendship and repose complete confidence in one another. The “Economist” observes: The first anniversary of the outbreak of the war has been celebrated by something far more effective than oratory. The greatest benefit of the arrangements, in the opinion of this journal, is evidence it gives of the way in which Britain and America complement each other’s defensive—the manner in which events have brought a clearer insight on both sides of the Atlantic. There could not be a clearer example of genuine reciprocity than this exchange.