Britain To Swop Islands For U.S. Warships?

Northern Advocate, 16 August 1940, Page 5

Britain To Swop Islands For U.S. Warships?

i Received 11 a.m.) WASHINGTON, August 15

Reports published in a New York newspaper stating that Britain and the United States were negotiating for the exchange of a strategic British island for American warships is denied in Washington. The secretary to the President (Mr Stephen Early) said he had checked with President Roosevelt, who replied emphatically: “It’s .just another story.”

Previously the State Department had denied any knowledge of the negotiations.

The Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Henry lVlorgenthau) told a Press conference that the British were repeating weekly urgent appeals for permission to buy old United States destroyers.

Replying to a question whether he had discussed trading an island for the warships, lie said: "I'm not going into that."

New York Post” Story

The story to which Mr Early refers is published in the "New York Post” from Washington, declaring that negotiations are nearing a climax for the exchange of British islands in the Western Hemisphere for United States destroyers and torpedo boats. The article adds that the Navy's objections were overcome by the offer of strategic islands, also by permission being offered the United States to build Army, Navy and Air bases in any British territory in the Western Hemisphere.

Britain's Offer

It is learned from the most .authoritative source that Britain has offered to lease naval base sites in British Western Hemisphere possessions to the United States for 99 years, in return for 50 or more over-age destroyers, says a later message. It is reported that the SolicitorGeneral (Mr Robert H. Jackson) has

given an opinion that the existing law would not prohibit trading destroyers if the Chief of Naval Operations certified that they were not essential for defence of the United States.