The Hawera Star WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1935 CAN AMERICA STAND CLEAR?

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 4 September 1935, Page 6

The Hawera Star

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1935 CAN AMERICA STAND CLEAR?

Delivered every evtaiug t»y 3 '' clocli u. Hawera. Manaia, Kaapokonui. Otakeho Oeo, Pibarna, Opunake. Eltharn, Kgaeie Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna.i Te Kiri. Mahoe, Lowgarth, Alanutahi, Kal.aru mea, Alton, Hurleyville. Patea, Whenuu knra, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara Obangai, Meremere, Fraser Eoad and Ararata

The United States has its Nentrality Act, recently rushed through its concluding stages, designed to protect America from , being embroiled in any European war. In British countries there will bo a tendency to believe that, having passed the Act, all Americans have heaved a sigh of relief and told themselves that “it doesn’t matter wliat happens now at Geneva, Addis Ababa, or anywhere else; we’re well out of it.” But in making that assumption we do an injustice to American intelligence. That Americans are not by any means completely lulled into a sense of security is shown by American exchanges to hand by this week’s mail. There is criticism in plenty to be found in the American press and some straight-out accusation that America is trying to adopt a facing-both-ways attitude and failing to face up to anything. The repercussion of European troubles has already been felt on American shores. With one hand Washington is trying to frame new air-tight neutrality statutes intended to insulate the United States from contact with foi’eign quarrels. With the other it is trying to propitiate foreigners who arc exercised by incidents on American soil and to soothe citizens who are equally cxer.cised by incidents on foreign soil. How, in these circumstances, could the United States remain untouched by foreign war, is the question thoughtful Americans are asking themselves. “The President’s meagre words are merely dove feathers attached to the puny peace effort at Geneva to prevent the witches’ cauldron in Ethiopia' from spilling over. The words are impotent, less for what they say than for the inconsistent backing and filling of which they are the latest manifestation,” says one critic. Following upon President Roosevelt’s first message “hoping for a peaceful settlement” of the Abyssinian affair, Mr. Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, - apparently more alive to the dangers of the situation than the President, both verbally to the Italian Ambassador and by statement to the public expressed American concern for the observance of the Kellogg Pact. He was said to have been given some leeway by the White House in order to correct the current misconceptions. Apparently the Secretary went too far, for the President; in his next announcement, made a counter “correction,” referring to Ethiopia as a problem outside American concerns. Since then correction has been attended by further correction in the consignment of a goodwill message to the Geneva parley. “The President wants to show the world that he is with them in their peace efforts, but he is anxious to assure the American people that he will not be drawn into European quarrels,” says a leading daily newspaper editorially. “Such tactics must necessarily be futile. At home an atmosphere of uncertainty and irresolution is created in which American diplomacy will become a football between co-operators and isolationists. Abroad the manoeuvre cannot fail to miss its objective. Europeans are now classifying the Kellogg Pact as another of those illegitimate peace children which the United States has left on their doorstep. So far as influence is concerned, American diplomacy has already entered upon a stage of diminishing returns, And yet the maintenance of peace in the Italo-Ethio-pian crisis may eventually be as vital to the United States as it is to Europe. The American people will be lulled into a false sense of security if they think that the only way to keep out of international trouble is to fence themselves in. The world is tod crowded to permit any major constituent of it to escape its pressures. Secretary Cordell Hull is fully alive to this fact. He put the American problem pithily in a recent statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The primary task in keeping out of; war, lie said, was to see that the peace is kept.” American critics of the President’s neutrality policy arc not urging that the United States should play the knight-errant for the human race, but there is a well-defined belief that America should make a greater effort on the side of active peace-making before war » finally breaks out.