Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1940. A MAGNIFICENT PLEDGE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 167, 14 June 1940, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1940. A MAGNIFICENT PLEDGE.

-Mr Roosevelt’s- speech at CKarlotteville, with. • the whole world as his audience, has brought a heartening message to the Allies. The President has pledged 'to the “opponents of force” America’s material resources, and the nation will “simultaneously harness and speed up the use of these resources in order to have equipment and training equal to the task of any emergency.” Gone from the greater part of the republic is the atmosphere which surrounded the passing of the Neutrality Bill last year, when Congressmen were suspicious that any help for the forces of Democracy would bring the war to the United States. The policy of isolation has been shattered by the march of aggression, and Mr Roosevelt pointedly tells his countrymen that the United States cannot safely be permitted to become a lone island in a world dominated by the philosophy of force. He very plainly sees what victory for the Fascists would mean to his nation—the victory of the “gods of force and hate would endanger the institutions of Democracy and the Western World.” So, short of a declaration of war against those forces, Mr Roosevelt declares that the whole of their sympathies lie with the nations giving their life-blood to combat those forces. Such condemnation comes at a most appropriate time. . Holland and Belgium have been overrun by international bandits, and France is being torn by the vilest instruments of war that man can devise to satisfy the lust of power and the desire to destroy another nation. To, help the two Democracies in their great hour of need America pomes to the rescue with gretft resources of materials _ of war —the most valuable of assistance—and, of great moral effect too, the intimation to the aggressors- that the republic stands by the side of Democracy.

Mr Roosevelt now lilts the veil concerning Mr Sumner Welles’s mission to Europe a few months ago. When Mr Welles-went to Rome he took a message from the President to try to arrange with Britain and France any “readjustment” that Italy desired. Here, then, was the opportunity for Mussolini to secure the readjustment that he had long sought of the alleged inequality of the settlement after the Great War. Furthermore, Mr Roosevelt would willingly have asked an assurance from the other Powers concerned (Britain and France chiefly) that they would faithfully execute any agreement so reached, anti that Italy ? s voice in future peace conferences would have the same authority as if Italy had participated in the war. Mr Roosevelt failed to attain this end, and in spite of Mussolini’s messages to him expressing a desire to limit the wai lie has marched either with a desire to secure the spoils of aggression if obtainable-or at the

command of his master. His war guilt has been proved a lmndred times over by the President’s statement. He discarded conciliation which might not have given him all he wanted, for he could have made his demands fantastical in nature, for the hazards of war which will yield him nothing, but instead reduce his people to poverty and force disaster upon them. He is now with the gods of force that, endanger Democratic institutions, but the Allies, through that despicable act, have been assured of the United States’ greatest help and knowledge that in this war Americans stand firmly with them. The implications of this assistance in all its ramifications cannot yet be fully appreciated.