Speeding-up Of Defence Programme Urged

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 44, 20 February 1941, Page 7

Speeding-up Of Defence Programme Urged

U.S. Preparing for War

FRANK DECLARATION OF WHERE COUNTRY STANDS United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph —Copyr Ign t. Received Wednesday, 10 p.m. NEW YORK, Feb. 18. The former European Ambassador, Mr. Bullitt, in an address urged a steppiug-up of the defence programme. “If the Germans, by controlling the air, should be victorious,’’ he said, “the Nazi dreams of a German superrace ruling a world of unarmed slaves might well become a reality The United States is not yet producing at war speed. If we willed the* end and willed the means, we could double the number of planes we now plan to produce in 1942.” The Daily News says the Maritime Commission has worked out a plan whereby United States shipping .companies would charter 58 idle Danish vessels which are tied up in North and South American ports for use in the Western Hemisphere and Pacific Ocean, thereby releasing British ships for duty in the North Atlantic. It is stated that the British have agreed to withdraw ships from the Pacific. Congressional naval experts state that the Administration’s decision to construct an 8,000,000-dollar naval and air base in Samoa was intended to guarantee against a surprise approach to Hawaii and the Panama Canal by the South Pacific. They said it also had implications in the United States for Far Eastern diplomacy. The United States desired to show that Japan had completely altered public sentiment regarding naval policy in the Pacific. Mr. Roosevelt said he hoped to announce within a week a home defence programme, outlining a plan whereby every man and woman would be enabled to make their contribution to j defence. I He said that United States destroyer production had been greatly speeded up. The Navy was at present geared to produce destroyers in 12 to 15 months, instead of 20 to 30 as heretofore. The result of Mr. Roosovelt’s discussions with Mr. Hopkins and the Agricultural Department has started a survey to determine what food supplies could be sent abroad in the event of Mr. Roosevelt declining to make the United States a larder for the democracies. “Nearly in the War” The Secretary of Commerce (Mr. Jesse Jones), addressing the House Banking Committee, said: “The United States is in the war, or at least nearly in, and is preparing for it.” Mr. Roosevelt has issued Executive orders establishing naval defence areas around the Alaskan, Pacific and Caribbean sites where the new defence bases are located, including Palmyra, Johnson, Midway and Wake Islands, Kingman Reef, Tutuila and Guam. The orders close these areas to commercial vessels and prohibit non-military aircraft flying over them. Senator Bennett Clark, the first opposition speaker in the Senate debate, said the British Aid Bill would weaken the American defences and gamble the whole national safety upon one card—a complete British victory.

“I am entirely unwilling to committhe United States’ defence to the British Empire,” he said. “I do not agree that the American people should underwrite the expenses of the British Empire from Hongkong to Labrador.

“I am unwilling that the American taxpayers, already hardpressed, should be called upon to adopt measures which Canada, New Zealand and Australia have not yet been called upon to enact. ’ ’

Senator Hiram Johnson presented the minority report on behalf of the opponents of the Bill.

“There is no need now for additional aid,” he said. “Britain is receiving, and will continue to receive, all the aid necessary that can, with due regard to our own safety, be accorded.”