FEELING IN AMERICA

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21043, 20 February 1940, Page 5

FEELING IN AMERICA

BRITISH ACTION JUSTIFIED CRITICISM OF GERMANY THE TABLES TURNED (United Prcs3 Assn.—Ei«c. Tel. Copyright) NEW YORK, Feb. 19 While the State Department declines to comment on the boarding of the Altmarck, as American interests are not involved, all unofficial Washington opinion agrees that Britain has tenable grounds under international law to support her action. Leading jurists declare Norway was at fault in not determining the true status of the Altmarck and freeing the prisoners. They cited the case of the Appam in 1916, when the United States was forced into setting free 429 British prisoners who were taken into Newport News on board the liner, which had been captured by a German raider. Mr James W. Gerard, who was Ambassador to Germany from 1913 to 1917, said: “Just suppose the Altmarck had put into New York harbour. Would we have stood for it?” Berlin’s Wild Cries The New York Herald-Tribune says: “There is grim humour in Berlin’s wild cries of anger, pain and outraged moral virtue. The nation whose government have made brute force their deity have had, relatively mildly, the tables turned. “Norway, of course, is protesting with one eye on Germany, but no one outside Germany is really profoundly shocked. Many Americans are not repressing sardonic smiles at the German outcries.” The New York Times says: “Few incidents of the war have surpassed in sheer dramatic interest the Cossack’s rescue of the British seamen. The Norwegians’ failure to discover the prisoners is incredible, but it is conceivable that the unhappy Norwegian Government was acting under German pressure. This is the only explanation, too, for Sweden’s refusal to allow the passage of foreign troops to Finland.”