PEACE & NEUTRALITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1939, Page 7

PEACE & NEUTRALITY

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT URGES ACTION SHORT MESSAGE TO CONGRESS CONTENTIONS BY MR HULL ENDORSED. AMERICAN PEOPLE BEING MISLED. Ry Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) WASHINGTON. July 14. President Roosevelt, in a terse hun-dred-word message, forwarded a statement by Mr Cordell Hull (Secretary of State) entitled “Peace and Neutrality” to Congress. The President said:— “In the present situation of danger, a peaceful nation like ours cannot complacently close its eyes and ears, in formula! ing a peace and neutrality policy, as though abnormal and critical conditions did not exist. This question should in my judgment receive full and careful consideration and be acted upon by Ibis Government without unnecessary .or undue delay. Those who urge the retention of the present embargo continue to advance the view that it will keep the United States out of war, thereby misleading the American people to rely upon a false and illogical delusion as a means of keeping out of war.” The President declared that Mr Hull’s statement had his full approval and that he trusted it would receive the earnest attention of Congress. “It has been abundantly clear tb me for some time,” he said, “that for the cause of peace and in the interest of American neutrality and security, it is highly advisable that Congress this session should take certain muchneeded action in light of present world conditions. I see no reason to change that opinion.” Mr Hull insisted in his statement that it was illogical that while trade in arms, ammunition and implements of war is banned at present with belli gerents, trade in equally essential war materials can continue. He repeated the six-point neutrality programme which the Government recommends:— (1) Prohibition of American ships from entering combat areas. (2) Restriction of travel by Americans in combat zones. (3) Transfer of title to foreign pur chasers for goods exported from the United States to belligerents. (4) Continuation of the forbiddance of loans and credits to warring nations. (5) Regulation of the solicitation of funds for belligerents in the United States. (6) Continuation of the Munitions Control Board and the system of licensing the trade in arms and munitions. “There has thus been offered as a substitute for the present Act a far broader and more effective set of provisions which in no conceivable sense could breed trouble, but which to a far greater extent than the present Act would both aid in making less likely general war and, while keeping strictly within the limits of neutrality, would reduce as far as possible the risk of this nation being drawn into war if war comes,” Mr Hull continued. He appealed for co-operation and collaboration between the Executive and the Legislative branches of the Government on matters of foreign policy and stressed that the only way in which the United States will prevent involvement in war is by preventing the outbreak of it. He denied that the Administration’s programme aims at aiding or injuring particular foreign countries and asked for a repeal of the arms embargo because it “plays into the hands of those nations which have taken the lead in building up their fighting power.” Mr Hull concluded: “Small countries are particularly dependent upon nations like the United States, which can produce armaments. Our refusal to make it possible for them to obtain such means of necessary self-defence in a time of grave emergency would contribute solely towards making more helpless the law-abiding and peacedevoted peoples of the world.”