GRIM DETERMINATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4232, 17 January 1940, Page 4

GRIM DETERMINATION

TO KEEP AMERICA OUT OF WAR “The (United States) Bill totally repeals the present law forbidding citizens of the United States to trade in arms with the belligerent countries or their subjects. The Bill ordains that belligerents buying munitions or any other goods in the United States must pay cash for them then and there, and remove them in their own ships. If this provision is satisfactorily enforced, a hostile Power, carrying out legitimate operations at sea to prevent arms from reaching its enemies, can be under no temptation either to destroy an American ship or to seize American property. With the same precautionary object the Administration is equipped with extensive powers to prevent the entry of American ships into dangerous waters and the travel of American passengers under a belligerent flag. The ‘cash and parry’ clause helps to prevent the belligerent Powers from running up debts in America that they may subsequently be unable to pay, and so renewing what remains to most Americans the most rankling grievance arising from the last war. There is a more drastic clause in the same sense which forbids belligerent Governments to sell securities or solicit funds in the United States. The purpose of the Bill is not financial; it is simply to keep America out of war.” —“The Times.”