A Neutral Ally
Stirring herself to realities, as this country began to do after Munich, the United States is today manifesting an intense awareness to the possible, indeed probable, implications of the European war. The general position is well summed up by our American correspondent on another page, but in the fortnight since he wrote the situation has developed considerably further. The whole country, apart from the more radical wing of the isolationists, is now eager to furnish the Allies with every form of practical support short of the despatch of an expeditionary force. The output of aeroplanes is being reorganised on a national scale with a view to vastly increased production—up to 50,000 machines a year—and it has even been proposed that aeroplanes actually in military or naval service in the United States should be released immediately for the Allies, IY,t Senator Pepper's resolution to that effect has proved too much for Congress to swallow. Rapid delivery is a prime necessity. Some of the bombers are already being flown across the Atlantic, and it is worth considering whether other machines could not make the journey by alighting on an aircraft-carrier in mid-ocean for refuelling. Meanwhile President Roosevelt has been exerting his utmost efforts to dissuade Signor Mussolini from bringing Italy into the war. He may be unsuccessful in that, but it seems probable that he has at any rate deferred that development, and every day's postponement of new military complications is so much gain to the Allies as they struggle to hold on till reinforcements in resources reach them.
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