SWEEPING TIDE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24613, 22 May 1941, Page 8

SWEEPING TIDE

ANGLO-AMERICAN CO-OPERATION AIMS OF NEW MOVEMENT “ Signs are everywhere evident of the rapidly-growing strength of that sweeping tide of British-American cooperation to which Mr Churchill, with his usual happy choice of words, referred last year,” stales the first bulletin of the New Zealand section of the British-American Co-operation Movement. “It has taken ll.e greatest crisis m human history to sweep aside all minor, petty obstructions and to unite the two great .democratic strongholds as never before," the bulletin adds “ Here is no forced co-operation, nurtured by fear of the knout and the concentration camp, but a co-operation based upon the mutual understanding of two free peoples faced with a common threat. Practical Co-operation “With the passing of the Aid to Britain Act, commonly called the Lease and Lend Act, on March 11, 1941, the principal vehicle' for this sound and practical co-operation became fully operative, creating the United States into ‘a great arsenal for democracy,’ to use the President's own words. Actually American opinion quite obviously ran ahead of Congress in this direction, and the result was. again to quote the President, ‘ an impressive expression of the public will, without regard to partisanship.' From now onward there will be >ho half measures, no * business as usual.’ but the full mobilisation of America’s great resources, rallied to the cause of free nations, to guarantee final victory for democracy. r, ■ “And President Roosevelt, not coiltent with making a gesture, created a naval fact when he sent units of the United States Fleet on a training cruise, which included visits to the two major outposts of the British Empire in the Pacific. Two days after the President’s historic speech, a squadron of six American warships steamed up Auckland’s harbour to bear businesslike and practical witness to the unity of two great peoples. Events Move Swiftly

“In the nine months which have elapsed since the formation of the New Zealand section of the BritishAmerican Co-operation Movement, events overseas, moving with incx-ed-ible swiftness, have furnished ample inspiration for those who have our cause at heart. ■ln one way and another an organisation such as ours can do much to quicken the spirit of friendship and interest in one another’s problems and conditions now existing between the peoples of New Zealand and America, but to function with full efficiency we must have a far larger membership than we possess at present.”