Alleging Delays To Ships, U.S. Protests To Britain

Northern Advocate, 24 January 1940, Page 5

Alleging Delays To Ships, U.S. Protests To Britain

NEW YORK, January 22.

The United States Government has expressed serious concern ever the treatment the British are accoi’ding to American shipping in the Mediterranean, particularly at Gibraltar.. ■ The State Department has published an aid memoire, which was handed to the British Ambassador (the Marquess of Lothian) on January 20, protesting against American ships being detained at Gibraltar three times as long as Italian vessels.

A list was given of nine American vessels detained at Gibraltar between November 15 and December 15 for an average of 12.4 days, compared with Italian ships, detained for an average of four days. Assurances Demanded. The United States Government demanded assurances that the examinatioi\ of ships will be speeded up>, and asserted that at present Britain is discriminating against American vessels. The Washington correspondent of the “New York Times” comments that the publication of the American aid memoire with Mr Hull’s action later in summoning Lord Lothian, implies that, while the United States will continue to protest at infringement of her rights, appeals will also be made to Britain to adhere to a reasonable programme, lest public opinion in the United States, long favourable to Britain, should suffer a revulsion which might have far-reaching consequences. The correspondent adds that affairs are threatening to reach the 1914-1916 status of Anglo-American relations over neutral rights.

“What further the United States can do is not indicated, but the memoire. In its demand for corrections, is more than a protest,” says the correspondent.

The chief correspondent of the “New York Times” at Washington (Mr Arthur Krock) says practical sympathisers with Britain hold that, as previously in Anglo-American relations, it is not so much what the British have done, as the manner in which they have done it. If London, having discovered that the American mails were full of contraband, had appealed to Washington to do something about it, and Washington, reversing in its 1915 policy, had insisted on the inviolability of the mails, Britain, in searching them, would have had a good case. "But the British acted without previous parley,” says Mr Krock, “and so far no listed contraband has been discovered.

“The American Ambassador (Mr J. P. Kennedy) may return to London in time to alleviate the situation,- and meanwhile the British might profit by proving, if they can, that the game is worth the candle.”