GRAVE VIEW

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 216, 10 August 1940, Page 7

GRAVE VIEW

WAR SITUATION. MR ROOSEVELT’S CONCERN. (United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received August 10, 9.20 a.m. HYDE PARK, Aug. 9. President Roosevelt to-day emphasised the gravity with which he viewed the situation, saying his tour of the north-eastern defences would not be allowed to take him over twelve or fourteen hours’ train distance from Washington. \

Mr Roosevelt said , lie is meeting the special American Government emissary, Colonel W. J. Donovan, who this week returned to New York by the flyingboat Clare, after a fortnight’s visit to Britain, and Colonel Knox (Secretary to the Navy) to-morrow at Portsmouth during his tour of the defences. He declined to comment on Colonel Donovan’s mission to England and said he would hear Colonel Donovan’s report. Colonel Knox lias asked Congress to authorise the Navy Marine Corps in future to hold new recruits for an indefinite period during any war or “declared national emergency” instead of for the present enlistment periods. Mr Roosevelt stated that the odds were 100 to 1 against National Guardsmen or American regulars being assigned to active service outside the United States or its possessions. Under the National Guard Mobilisation Bill the President lias power to assign them to any part of the Western Hemisphere.

At Washington- the Secretary 1 for War (Mr H. L. Stimson) told the Congressional Tax Committee that the War Department had been able to sign contracts only for 33 ( war planes, although money had been available for seven weeks to construct four thousand. He said the chief stumbling block was the lack of a satisfactory amortisation programme whereby manufacturers would receive tax concessions to repay them for the expenses of the necessary plant expansion. Mr Stimson added that difficulty had been encountered throughout the arms industry. He denied that the manufacturers were not co-operating. Mr W. S. Knudsen, head of General Motors Corporation and Co-ordinator of Industrial Resources, in an interview, said the present plane production of 900 a month should reach 15C0 in January and will be increased steadily thereafter. He cfxDressod the opinion that there would be substantial 'deliveries o! planes, tanks and guns by February 1