AMERICA AND WAR

Patea Mail, 5 January 1940, Page 3

AMERICA AND WAR

MUST ENTER EVENTUALLY

> BYRD EXPEDITION’S VIEW .“If the war goes on for some time the United States must be dragged in : and the longer it continues the greater is the chance that she will have to fight. ” This statement, was made to a Do- ■ minion reporter by a member of the United' States Antarctic expedition, >■ who has travelled widely in the States. ■ “There is no need to ask in 'which direction the sympathy of the people of our country lies. They are definitely anti-Hitler and are strong in .their desire to see the Allies triumph soon," he said. “The repeal of the arms embargo showed very definitely what the United States of America thinks.” It is extremely difficult to gauge accurately the true feelings of a huge nation like the United States, but if ■ the men on board the North Star could be taken as a truly representative Section, then the attitude of the people can be well summed up in the foregoing statements. Most of the men spoke on similar lines, and all stressed ; the general desire for victory of the Allies. ; “It is inevitably that we shall fight nooner. or later,” one visitor said. •‘Germany is being very careful not to break international law and offend the United States, but she breaks it far more often than the Allies. .There have already been a few incidents teat have aroused public indignation ag- ■ aiust Germany —the sinking of the Atheuia, for example—and there are bound to be many more. “People of the United States are against all that Hitler, and Hitlerism stand for, and they are also deeply 1 shocked by Russia’s invasion of 1 inland. Though we arc doing cur best to keep out of the struggle, we leel it is only ,a matter of time. “We shall never let the Allies go 1 down for they are our buttress against European aggressors. ' On the other hand, we do not wish to enter the war any sooner than we can help, because we have not forgotten how badly hit we were in the Great War. It look ' us - far longer to recover from that struggle'than it did Britain or France, and we are still feeling the effects? of -it’. Can you blame us that we are noUikurrying- into' the present conflict? ”“*■

. The speaker also said: “You people in New Zealand will always have the United States as protection should a World war develop from this present conflict. 7>