AMERICA SERIOUSLY CONCERNED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21560, 24 January 1940, Page 7

AMERICA SERIOUSLY CONCERNED

Sharp Reminder To Britain Interference With Ships United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received January 23, 10.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, January 23. The United States has expressed serious concern over the treatment the British are according American shipping in the Mediterranean, particularly at Gibraltar. The State Department published an aide memoire and handed it to the British Ambassador (Lord Lothian) on Saturday, protesting that American ships were detained at Gibraltar three times as long as Italians. It listed nine American ships detained at Gibraltar between November 11 and December 15, 1939, for an average of 12.4 days each, whereas Italian ships were detained on an average of four days. The United States demanded assurances that the examination of ships would be speeded up and declared that at present discrimination was being shown against American ships.

The Washington correspondent ol the "New York Times” comments that the publication of the aide memoire

with Mr Cordell Hull’s action later ir summoning Lord Lothian, implies that while the United States will continue to protest against the infringements of her rights, appeals will also be made to the British Government to adhere to a reasonable programme lest public opinion in the United States, long favourable to Britain, suffers a revulsion having far-reaching consequences.

The correspondent observes that Lord Lothian did not carry a reply to the aide memoire. Affairs are threatening to reach the 1914-1916 status in relations between Britain and the United States over neutral rights. What further the United States will do is not indicated, but the aide memoire in its demand for corrections is more than a protest.

Mr Arthur Krock, of the “New York Times,” says that practical sympathisers with Britain hold that as previously in Anglo-American relations, it is not so much what the British have done as the manner in which they have done it. If London, having discovered that Ameriqtin mails were full of contraband, had appealed to ■Washington to do something about it and Washington, reversing its 1915 policy, had insisted on the inviolability of the mails, Britain in searching them wouid have had a good case, but the British Government acted without a previous parley and so far no listed contraband has been discovered. The American Ambassador (Mr Joseph Kennedy) may return to London in time to ameliorate the situation. Meanwhile the British Government might profit by proving if they can that the game is worth the candle. Food Sent To Germany Mr T. E. Kessemeier, president of the Fortra Corporation, frankly admits sending foodstuffs to Germany at the rate of 1,000.000 dollars yearly, but sihee the British searching of United States mails, the money has been wirelessed to Bremen, upon which agents in Holland and other adjoining neutral countries purchase food and forward it to Germany where the packages, for which sympathisers in the United States have paid 670 to 859 cents, are distributed through the German mails. The Fortra Corporation has offices in 16 United States cities staffed by officials of the Lloyd Hapag steamship line. So far 30,000 packages have been sent to Germany. Diamonds in Mails The Australian Associated Press learns authoritatively that the Britisn search of United States mails to Germany yielded a large quantity of diamonds, which are regarded as unquestionably contraband, and valuable means of providing foreign exchange. The United States’ displeasure is no greater than the British Embassy’s, which is very irritated at the indirect means whereby the United States’ displeasure was publicised in the newspapers, and the failure to seek the British viewpoint, or present fully evidence of an organised campaign by certain small but determined groups in the United States to assist Germany, which was revealed in the British reply.