NO DIRECT AID

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23700, 5 July 1940, Page 8

NO DIRECT AID

UNITED STATES NAVY NEW SECRETARY'S VIEWS APPOINTMENT CONFIRMED By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright WASHINGTON, July 3' The Senate Naval Committee has approved by nine'votes to five the nomination of Colonel William Franklin Knox as Secretary of the Navy. Colonel Knox, in testifying before the committee, said that any British warships entering an American port would have to be interned. Colonel Knox said lie was also opposed to the United States convoying supply ships bound for belligerent countries, because this would "mean war." In his attitude on both questions be differed from .Mr. H. L. Stiinson, Secretary for War, who urged the need of supporting British naval supremacy in the North. Atlantic. Colonel Knox added that to ensure its defence the United States should acquire sites for naval buses in South America, which was filled with warring political factions and was ripe for totalitarian penetration, which would be a menace to the United States.

Senator H. D. Holt (West Virginia) said he was submitting a minority report against Colonel Knox, and indicated that the isolationists would fight Colonel Knox and .Mr. Stiinson on tin 1 floor of the Senate.

Colonel Knox .said there was less hope than ever before of the United States exercising influence to prevent internal dissension in Kurope. Europe was facing a period of acute misery. The United States might be useful to the rest of the world if it conducted itself so that the world would desire to imitate it.

A message from Topeka (Kansas) says that Mr. H. Woodring, who resigned the post of Secretary of War, will not appear voluntarily before the Senate Committee.

AMERICAN DEFENCE WIDER PROGRAMME PROPOSALS BY PRESIDENT (Received July <t, 7.10 p.m.) WASHINGTON. July 3 President Roosevelt has broadened bis new defence programme to include the Navy in a plan which will require 5,000.000,000 dollars for immediate appropriations and authorisations, It is expected to be submitted to Congress next Monday. The Naval Committee of the Senate has approved a bill authorising a 70 per cent increase in the fighting fleet.

The Navy has awarded contracts for three aircraft - carriers, each of 43,662.000 dollars, and two cruisers, each of 19,272.000 dollars, completing contracts for the 11 per cent naval expansion and making 92 ships totalling 499.435 tons for which contracts have been let in the last three weeks. This is in addition to 66 warships which are being constructed under earlier authorisations.

A message from Honolulu says the United States Navy has announced that 20 engineers and other experts are on board the army transport Chaumont, en route to Wake Island, to begin preliminary work of a new naval base which will cost 7,600,000 dollars. General Pershing, endorsing the Burke-Wadsworth Bill, sent a letter to the Senate Military Committee stating that compulsory training "might well be a determining factor in keeping the United States out of war."

NEW BENEFITS BRITISH UNEMPLOYED % MEETING WAR SITUATION British Wireless LONDON, July 3 The Minister of Labour and National Service, Mr. Ernest Bevinj had the unusual experience of making his maiden Parliamentary speech in the House of Commons from the front bench, when moving the second reading of the Unemployment Insurance Bill, which increases the rate of benefit and extends the scope to a large number of blackcoated workers. Mr. Bevjn said unemployment in certain branches of industry was being created deliberately, of sheer national necessity, partly by the delay in the transfer of workers to war industry. "When you deliberately, in the interests of the State, create unemployment, you cannot then take advantage of the rates fixed for an entirely different purpose," Mr. Hevin said. He explained that an increase in the contribution rate of both worker and employer was necessary because lie had to see that the new regulations would not entail borrowing, especially as he regarded a temporary boom after the present war as impossible.

REFUGEES ARRIVE ATLANTIC CROSSING OFFERS OF HOSPITALITY WASHINGTON, July 3 In the House of Representatives, .Mr. I'" 1 . R. Hnvenner (Democrat, San Francisco) introduced a bill to permit the entry into the United States of 100.000 British children over the immigration quota. Members of the faculties at Cambridge and Harvard have offered their homes for British children. Committees have been formed, and similar arrangements are being made at Yale, which is taking the first children arriving in Canada. A Montreal message says Mrs. Engelbert Dollfuss (widow of the former Chancellor of Austria, Dr. Dollfuss, who was Assassinated by the Nazis), arrived en route to the United States accompanied by her children, Eva, aged 12, and Rudi, aged 9. A thousand refugees from the United Kingdom have arrived at Montreal, including 300 children, some of whom are from families of the nobility and others from workers' families.

By special arrangement, Keuter's world jervii-e, in nddition to other special sources of information, is used in the compilation of the avcrsea intelligence published in this issue, and all rights therein in Australia and New Zealand are reserved. Such of the cable news on this page ns is so, headed has appeared in the Times and is cabled to Australia and New Zealand by special permission. It should be understood that the opinions are not those of th* Times (inless expressly stated to be bo.