U.S. NEUTRALLY ACT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 228, 27 September 1941, Page 5

U.S. NEUTRALLY ACT

MOVE FOR REPEAL BILL BEFORE THE SENATE London, Sept. 25. A Bill to repeal the United States Neutrality Act was presented to the Senate to-day by Senator Kenneth McKenna. Senator McKenna characterised the Act as bad and "doing no good." Representative Woodroole said the Neutrality' Act was "merely a shell of an empty Statute."

Earlier, the President’s private secretary (Mr. E. Early) stated that revision of the Act was likely next week, thus arousing widespread discussion. Referring to this, the isolationist, Senator Taft, said that repeal, of the Act would be equivalent to a declaration of war.

A cablegram states that the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Senator Connally) announced that he was ready to sponsor an amendment of the Neutrality Act without a formal request from the President.

He added that the Act was based on the illusion that the Nazis would not sink American ships if they stayed outside the combat zones. The New York Herald-Tribune says the Senate isolationists admit that they could probably muster only 35 to 40 votes opposing the repeal of the Neutrality Act. Yesterday it was revealed that Ameircan naval experts had asked for an appropriation of £19,000,000 to arm United States merchant ships should events demand that 'they be sent to dangerous waters. The isolationist America First Committee has issued a statement denying that Charles Lindbergh is antiSemitic. The statement said the interventionists had injected the race issue into the war debate.

The Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. H. M. Morgenthau) declared to-day that the profit motive must be eliminated from the defence programme. lie said a Bill is being drafted to limit corp»ration profits to 6 per cent.

The Secretary of State (Mr. Cordell Hull) said to-day that the responsibility for feeding the people of the occupied countries must rest with the occupying authorities. He said . that while there was the utmost sympathy with these people the situation was ■clear.