German and' Italian spokesmen have boasted that no aid would be permitted to reach Britain, American spokesmen declar~ ed on the contrary that the United States would sce that aid arrived. The United States had not passed the Lease and Lend bill and voted an appropriation of '$7,000,000,000 sto provide arms for the, fighting democracies merely in order to line the Atlantic ocean bed with the products of American factories, The obvious and direct method of assuring the delivery of supplies would have been to convoy shipping from American to British ports, But convoys as the President had once said might lead to shooting and shoot ing might lead to war. [he isolationists zed upon the convoy issue to make anther stand against United States foreign policy. They, appeared to have greater 7 Strength in. their resistance to this step than 7 they had to the arms lending programme. Administration supporters therefore sought ways and means of accomplishing their objective, which was the delivery of the moments made in United States factories to Great Britain, without provoking a head~ on collision with the isolationists on the convoy issue, The Administration approach to this obstacle to further aid for Britain was very similar to its approach to the problem of supplying her with arms despite her shortage of dollar exchange, The Johnson Act and the Neutrality act prohibited loans or' credits to war debt defoullers and belliger~ ents, Instead of attempting to overcome Congressional opposition to any modification or repeal of these Acts the Administration made a detour round them by its proposal to lend not dollars but war materials, Instead of attempting to overcome Congressional opposition to convoys the Administration sought to make a detour round It by finding some less controversial road to the same goal, was apparent that Britain, faced with the necessity of maintaining her supremacy in the Mediterranean and guarding her own island waters against attack as well as watching developments round British southern Pacific territory, could not do the job of Atlantic convoying satisfactorily alone. Britain alone could not keep the lease-lend supply lines safe. The Administration therefore began to cast round for methods of} achieving the purpose of convoys without adopting them. The instrument lay ready to hand in the Neutrality Patrol established shortly after the war "to see what was going fon" as the President phrased it.
Later on the 21 American Republics established a so-called safety zone in which they asserted belligerent activities should not take place, It was popularly supposed that] the duties of the Neutrality Patrot were limited to the Safety Zone which extended roughly 300 miles off shore. But no statement was ever made officially that this was $0, The delimitation of the Safety Zone did not place any restrictions upon the activities of the United States Neutrality Patrol, it merely defined part. of its activities, a part which Ip would undertake in a sense as a Pan-American agent. Its chief function' remained that of "sooing what was going' on" and reporting back to the United States, Sudden and unprovoked aggression against! nation after nation in Europe increased the} need for knowledge of what was going on, need which did not come to an abrupt halt) at any artificially designated line. In carrying out its primary function of recon naissance the Neutrality Patrol could also warn shipping. The patrol was @familiar and accepted unit. It roused less fears if the familiar were expanded and given new duties than if some new programme were in~ augurated round which a psychological atmosphere of alarm had been created by isolationist exaggeration, Hence the President late in April announced that the Neutrality Patrol would range the seven seas if need be searching for signs of the aggressors presence. He compared its work with that of frontier scouts whose discovery of an Indian con~ centration even 200 miles away might save the covered waggon train from attack, This press conference may rank in importance With that of December 17 when the Lease and Lend policy was announced. The Pre~ sident did not say in so many words that the American fleet would be used to keep the seas free except within the combat zones designated under the Neutrality Act but the general impression he left on his audience was that such would be his policy. They remembered a stitement at an earlier April press conference that the protection of American shipping if attacked was a statu tory duty of the United States navy, not a question of polley—it was on a par with saying that if New York was attacked it Would be defended.
Secretary Hull stated plainly that the lease and Tend policy implied that the arms should get fo England. "Ways must be
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.