Americas Begin Safety Zone Talks

Northern Advocate, 16 December 1939, Page 9

Americas Begin Safety Zone Talks

(Received 1.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, December 15

The United States Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) said Pan-American consultations were beginning towards the taking of common action regarding the naval engagement off Uruguay. The representatives are assembling the facts, and are transmitting them to the President of Panama, whose Pan-American liaison officer has not decided whether to consult the conference or diplomatic channels. Mr Hull added that the United States would meet the other Americas halfway. British View. The engagement naturally recalled the proposal discussed last September at the Pan-America Conference at Panama for a 300-mile neutrality zone in the Western Atlantic, says a British Official Wireless message. At the time of the conference, British official circles showed sympathy with the object of the scheme, but serious misgivings were expressed as to its practicability. The difficulties which were envisaged then would seem to have been illustrated by the , more recent events.

German Ship Operating Within Zone. It is obvious that the German battleship was operating within an area corresponding with the proposed neutral zone for one purpose only—the destruction of Allied merchant shipping.

No belligerent whose shipping was thus exposed to attack could accept restrictions which prevented its warships from affording protection and resisting enemy action in a certain area, unless it could rely on the same restrictions being effectively enforced against enemy warships as well.

It may be assumed that real and practical difficulties such as this, and not lack of goodwill, account for the fact that the British Government has not yet given formal expression to its views on the scheme formulated by the Pan-American States.

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