Help From America

Southland Times, Issue 24313, 19 December 1940, Page 4

Help From America

MR ROOSEVELT’S strong hint that help for Britain will not be hindered by financial difficulties may not seem important while the battle rages in Libya; but it will be received with relief and satisfaction in London, and with dejection in Berlin. Whatever methods are finally adopted, the President made it clear that old debt controversies will not be allowed to interfere with the stream of aeroplanes, guns and other war equipment now moving across the Atlantic. It is a remarkable fact, indeed, that the United States Government has been able to circumvent so many obstacles with so little disturbance of public opinion. Undoubtedly, there will be protests from men like Colonel Lindbergh who made up their minds that Britain could not resist the military power of Germany. They will bring out their old arguments and declare once again that the President is deliberately taking his country into the war. But their influence is waning, and it is not hard to discover the reason. Mobile warfare has one great virtue: it is sudden and swift in its achievement of results. The collapse of France, and the air attacks on Britain, gave the average American a rough awakening from his isolationist (dream. Like the average citizen in other countries, he had been thinking in terms of the last war. He had to realize, while the news bulletins shattered his peace of mind, that the war was spreading like a forest fire before a high wind, and that its flames would leap the Atlantic if the British people failed to subdue them.

The danger then was that Americans would pass too quickly from apathy to pessimism; many of them were ready to endorse the defeatism of Mr Joseph. Kennedy. But Britain stood firm, and in the great airbattles of August and September showed the world that the Germans were not invincible. More recently, the offensive in Egypt has proved that Britain is not tied to a defensive strategy. There is a magnetism in courage which reaches the hearts of free men. The endurance of English civilians, the gallantry of the Royal Air Force, the unexpected victories of the Greeks, and now the efficiency and valour of British soldiers in Libya have taught Americans that their sympathies and their interests are linked to the Allied cause.