AMERICA’S ATTITUDE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 10 March 1939, Page 3

AMERICA’S ATTITUDE

OBLIQUE CO-OPERATION WITH BRITAIN (By Air Mail-Own CorreflponrlmiM LONDON. 9th February. Washington reports of President Roosevelt’s reminder to the Senate Military Affairs Committee that a European war would find America in an attitude of benevolent neutrality towards Great Britain and France—thus implying armaments aid. but not active military assistance has naturally aroused attention in Whitehall, although such oblique co-operation in an emergency is

generally accepted in political quarters as a foregone conclusion. There .re many M.P.s, however —especially those with diplomatic experience—who are uneasy about the confidence with which some of their colleagues in Parliament are apt to assume that America would “come in” sooner or later, as she did in 1917, and Mr W. R. Hearst, the American newspaper owner, is only one of a number of prominent men who have lately complained bitterly about this, tactless assumption. American visitors to London often protest, and rightly. about the everlasting invitations to the States to join in a “democratic front” extended by certain politicians, and it is pointed out—again, with justice—that “democratic front” implies a military alliance. The strength of the isolationist movement in America, especially in the Republican Party ranks, is fatuously under-estimated in this ccuntry.