The American Effort
The spectacle of the American Government ,and people deliber- ately preparing to throw the unequalled resources of their country into a single concerted effort is a formidable thing, and, for those against whom the effort is directed, it should be a frightening thing, too. When President Truman proclaimed a state of emergency last Saturday he provided a new legal instrument for a process which has already raised the American defence budget from $14,000 million to $40,000 million in less than a year. Armed forces, already increased from 1,500,000 to 2,500,000, are now to go up to 3,500,000. Production of aeroplanes will be increased five- fold in a year, combat vehicles fourfold, and so on all along the line. The inevitable accompaniment will be wider conscription for the forces, longer hours of work, higher taxes and more controls. some of which have already been instituted, with more to corm largely at the discretion of Mr. Charles Wilson, who has been made President of the Office of Defence Mobilisation. The object of an this is, in President Truman's words, "to convince the Communist rulers that they cannot gain by aggression." That is the key phrase. ' and to forget it will be as perilous for the free peoples of the world as it will for the Governments of the Soviet Union and China, for although the sort of effort the Americans are now making must bring them to the very edge of war, yet they must never cross that line unless they are forced to do it. General Marshall, whoa" great wisdom and foresight created the most powerful instrument of recovery from the last war, has already gauged the currents pull- ing towards the next. It has now been disclosed that he told a committee of the House of Representatives nearly a month age that it would be a mistake to mobilise before the decision was forced upon us, but that in the meantime we must establish "a well-laid foundation and base" for mobilisation if it becomes necessary. Events have moved rapidly in December, but those words have not gone out of date. The object of the present effort is to deter the aggressors. It is only if the effort fails that it will be necessary to put the machine into action to defeat them.
