TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21042, 19 February 1940, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

“ Diplomatic Fiction ” "It is natural enough that the countries of North and South America should wish to keep the war away from their own shores. The Allies can certainly have no wish to carry fighting into American waters. If wide areas of the Atlantic and Pacific could be kept free from danger, so that merchant ships could move safely on their lawful occasion and German raiders could find no refuge on the coasts of two continents, British and French warships would gladly concentrate all their efforts along the shores of the Old World. But if this sort of security is to exist in fact the American Republics must be prepared to provide it. In point of fact, there is no sign whatever that any American Power is prepared to take action on this scale. Almost the moment when the Panama Conference first produced its plan for safeguarning American waters it was reported that a French warship had discovered (and sunk) a U-boat in the act of drawing fuel from a vessel belonging to the Government of one of the small Caribbean States. From its beginning, in fact, the ‘security zone' has been a diplomatic fiction."