STRONG SUPPORT FOR CONVOYS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21958, 9 May 1941, Page 5

STRONG SUPPORT FOR CONVOYS

“Less Talk And More Action ” U.S. In Grave Danger By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (10.16 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 8. Mr Wendell Willkie, addressing a freedom rally at Madison Garden said: “I care not whether you call the safe delivery of cargoes convoying, patrolling, aeroplane accompaniment or what not. We want those cargoes protected at once with less talk and more action. There is no reason for

despair. The British still control the seas and can draw on the world’s resources. Furnish Britain with the ships she needs until it hurts. Give her destroyers and see those ships deliver their cargoes safely at British ports.” Mr Willkie telegraphed to Mr Roosevelt urging him as leader of a free people to execute their will and provide the machines and materials so sorely needed for the defence of freedom. The Secretary of the Navy, Colonel Frank Knox, in a speech at the booksellers banquet said all American resources are committed to the supreme purpose of ensuring that British sea power is not destroyed. We are living in fearful danger. Our only safety is to supplement Brtain’s forces, because the non-maintenance of a bridge of ships to Britain would mean that we eventually would face the immeasurably superior combination of the Italian, German and French navies and also have to guard against Japan in the Pacific. “Oceans are not bulwarks but avenues of attack.” Commentators point out that this is the first official reference to the possibility of Germany using the French navy. Mr Stephen Early, the President’s Secretary, said to-day he had never heard of the possibility that the Panama Canal might be closed to Japanese ships. The speech by the United States Secretary of War (Mr H. L. Stimson) urging the use of the United States Navy to safeguard shipment of supplies to Britain is hailed in the United States as a turning point in the nation’s history. The “New York Herald-Tribune ’ states that the next two or three weeks are likely to be the most critical the .United States has ever faced. The newspaper states that America has reached the end of counting on Britain to save her. “Let us have a showdown with Hitler,” the newspaper stat es. The “New York Times,” in an editorial on Mr H. L. Stimson's speech, states: ‘The only real question is whether we shall choose to fight under our own terms and conditions or under the terms and conditions set by Hitler. “Let us not wait. Let us do so while there t still time to keep Britain in the war. Let us have a showdown with Hitler while it is still possible to have it at our own tremendous advantage.” Britain Cannot Lose On his arrival at the New York airport the Prime Minister of Australia (Mr R. G. Menzies) told the press: “I am convinced that Britain cannot lore the war, though the speed of her victory depends on the United States. “As Australian Prime Minister I want to say "uite frankly to the United States—it is up to you. You are not being asked to make a donation to a deserving charity, you are being asked to defend your own way of life. But you can do more than produce the materials of war, you can see that they arrive where they will do the most good.” '