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Show T HYING TO ESCAPE WAR. RATTLE LOOMS OVER AXIS. The time is approaching, if it is not already at hand, when the United States will assert its rights- on the high seas more vigorously. vi-gorously. The withdrawal of our commerce from belligerent areas, undertaken when the war began, in an effort to escape involvement involve-ment in the conflict, has failed to prevent hostilities from approaching approach-ing close and closer to the United States. The policy of the United States, before the European War began, was to do everything to avoid incidents in-cidents which might provoke armed arm-ed clashes. Consequently, we abandoned aban-doned certain very definite rights under international law. Now, since the national policy, under the Lend-Lease Act, is to extend the war now, a year hence or ten years hence," says the Texan, ' it has been decided by our elected representatives that the best way ; to insure against our getting in 'is to give all possible aid to those countries which are fighting to .preserve their independence and lour way of life." Having already "chosen our course," he does not ; think that we "should waste too much time over the road maps." Quite a legislative battle is certain cer-tain over the methods to be adopt-'ed adopt-'ed to increase the government's 'revenue. The program advanced by .the treasury will certainly come 'under congressional fire and the jtax on various commodities will be bombarded by treasury experts. It is too early in the engagement to attempt to outline the possible :tax rates, or to say just how the I fracas will end. The situation in the Far East is explosive and something may happen hap-pen any day to set off the fireworks. fire-works. It is well known that the United States, along with Great Britain 'and the Netherlands East Indies, is strengthening its defenses de-fenses and prepaTing for the worst. Last week there were intimations inti-mations that Japanese merchants in various sectors, including the Philippines, were closing out their goods and preparing to sail for home. What this means, no one knows, but there is general agreement agree-ment that Tokyo is closely watching watch-ing what happens in Europe and may decide, without any preliminary prelimin-ary notice, to move boldly. Where the Japanese will strike remains uncertain. can ships "on their legitimate affairs af-fairs to the end of the earth and back" with "no man making them afraid." This is an interpretation of American trading rights that is more nearly in accord with international inter-national law than with our so-called so-called neutrality legislation which requires our traders to abandon their commerce whenever any other nation sees fit to create a belligerent area. Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones warns the nation that one-fourth one-fourth of our normal man-power working hours will be required to produce and manufacture things necessary to the defense program and says that the national debt, which was considered excessive at ?45, 000,000, 000, might amount to double that sum because defense will cost us more than we now think. Mr. Jones makes it clear that if the conflict overseas was "just another European war," we would favor "going about our business and letting them shoot it out." Convinced, however, that the war is "a life and death struggle between be-tween two powerful world forces, with totally different concepts of life and government,1' he questions the judgment of Americans who are out of step with the defense program. While "we do not want to get in unlimited aid to Great Britain and other countries fighting aggressors, ag-gressors, it may become advisable advis-able for this country to reassert its trading rights under accepted international in-ternational law. Already the American neutrality neutral-ity patrol, which was set up at the beginning of hostilities, has been moved substantially eastward and Admiral Harold R. Stark admits that it is operating as far as two thousand miles offshore. President Roosevelt carefully distinguishes this patrol from convoy service. Evidently, it is designed to locate warships which seek to commit hostile acts in the western hemisphere hemi-sphere and the presumgtion is tha't the ships of friendly nations will be advised of the presence of their foes. The fact that this nation has committed itself to provide unlimited unlim-ited quantities of war supplies to the democracies creates a problem involving the delivery of these supplies to belligerent nations. Obviously Ob-viously the national policy will be ineffectual and a complete waste of money if the supplies are sent to the bottom of the ocean by the action of German submarines and airplanes. To make the policy a success, it is necessary, in the opinion opin-ion of many officials, for the United Unit-ed States to take whatever action that may become necessary to insure in-sure delivery to the British people. The debate over the use of American Am-erican warships for convoy service will be postponed. The belief exists that a patrol of the waters of the western hemisphere will render important im-portant assistance to the British and, perhaps, enable them to protect pro-tect supply ships on the latter part of the journey across the Atlantic. At-lantic. Admiral Starke, in discussing the neutrality patrol, pointed out that the navy is charged with the responsibility of protecting Ameri- |