of the United States Government was obtained up to August 19 of the same year for 99 percent of applications for shipments to Japan. In the light of this fact, the sudden enlargement of the iron and steel scrap licensing system to include all grades of these materials is hardly explicable from the standpoint of national defense, on which the regulation of September 30, 1940, is purported to be based.

The discriminatory feature of the announcement, that licenses will be issued to permit shipments to the countries of the Western Hemisphere and Great Britain only, has created a widespread impression in Japan that it was motivated by a desire to bring pressure upon her. The fact that the majority of essential articles and materials that Japan desires to import from America is placed under licensing system is causing a feeling of tension among the people of Japan, who naturally presume that the system is intended to be a precursor of severance of economic relations between Japan and the United States.

In view of the high feeling in Japan it is apprehended that, in the event of continuation by the United States Government of the present attitude toward Japan in matters of trade restriction, especially if it leads to the imposition of further measures of curtailment, future relations between Japan and the United States will be unpredictable.

It is a matter of course that the Governments of both Japan and the United States should endeavor as best they can to preclude such an eventuality. To this endeavor the Japanese Government will devote itself and trusts that it may have the full co-operation of the United States Government.

187

740.00119 European War 1939/530A

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in France (Matthews)

636. For your information.

[Telegram]

WASHINGTON, October 25, 1940-noon.

The following personal message was delivered yesterday to the French Ambassador from the President with the request that it be transmitted immediately to Marshal Pétain:

"In the opinion of the United States Government the fact that the French Government alleges that it is under duress and consequently cannot act except to a very limited degree as a free agent is in no sense to be considered as justifying any course on the part of the

French Government which would provide assistance to Germany and her allies in their war against the British Empire. The fact that a government is a prisoner of war of another power does not justify such a prisoner in serving its conqueror in operations against its former ally.

The Government of the United States received from the Pétain Government during the first days it held office the most solemn assurances that the French fleet would not be surrendered. If the French Government now permits the Germans to use the French fleet in hostile operations against the British fleet, such action would constitute a flagrant and deliberate breach of faith with the United States Government.

Any agreement entered into between France and Germany which partook of the character above-mentioned would most definitely wreck the traditional friendship between the French and American peoples, would permanently remove any chance that this Government would be disposed to give any assistance to the French people in their distress, and would create a wave of bitter indignation against France on the part of American public opinion.

If France pursued such a policy as that above outlined, the United States could make no effort when the appropriate time came to exercise its influence to insure to France the retention of her overseas possessions."

HULL

188

Department of State Bulletin, vol. III, p. 331

Address Delivered by the Secretary of State at Washington, October 26, 1940

It is with no light heart that I address you and any others who may be listening tonight on the subject of our international relations. I should be lacking in candor if I did not emphasize the gravity of the present situation.

Only once before in our national existence has as grave a danger from without threatened this Nation as the danger which looms today on the international horizon. That was in the stirring days when the founders of this Republic staked everything on their unshakable conviction that a nation of free men could be established and would endure on the soil of America. Theirs was a struggle and a victory the fruits of which have been the proud inheritance of succeeding gen

erations of Americans for more than a century and a half. These generations, including our own, have enjoyed this inheritance in a world where human freedom, national independence, and order under law were steadily becoming more and more firmly established as a system of civilized relations among nations and among individuals. Today that system and all peaceful nations, including our own, are gravely menaced. The danger arises out of the plans and acts of a small group of national rulers who have succeeded in transforming their peoples into forceful instruments for widespread domination by conquest.

To understand the significance of this danger and to prepare to meet it successfully we must see clearly the tragic lessons taught by what has occurred since the protagonists of conquest began their march across the earth. I ask you to review with me the whirlwind developments of one of the saddest and most crucial decades in the history of mankind-that of the nineteen-thirties.

I

The opening years of the decade were filled with ominous rumblings of impending disaster. Profound economic dislocation had spread rapidly to every part of the world. It had disrupted international economic relations and was causing untold distress everywhere. The structure of international peace was still intact, but a dangerous breach was opened in it by the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931. That act, universally condemned at the time, proved to be only the beginning of an epidemic of callous disregard of international commitments-probably unparalleled in the annals of history. International discussions for the reduction and limitation of armaments, begun much earlier, were dragging along. Their failure to result in effective agreements was adding to the general feeling of apprehension and insecurity.

These developments were bound to create grave difficulties and grave dangers for our country, as well as for the rest of the world. The problems which they presented imperatively demanded on our part vigorous initiative and leadership in the promotion and defense of the national interest.

Accordingly, in the conduct of foreign policy, this Government directed its efforts to the following objectives: (1) Peace and security for the United States with advocacy of peace and limitation of armament as universal international objectives; (2) support for law, order, justice, and morality and the principle of non-intervention; (3) restoration and cultivation of sound economic methods and relations;

(4) development of the maximum measure of international cooperation; (5) promotion of the security, solidarity, and general welfare of the Western Hemisphere. These basic objectives of a good-neighbor policy represented a sound and practical middle course between the extremes of internationalism and isolation. They have been consistently pursued throughout. The sweep of events has, of course, required the focusing of our attention at different periods upon different problems and different geographic areas.

II

In the early thirties, the relations among the American republics left much to be desired. Elements of mistrust, apprehension, and disunion had to be eliminated if a good-neighbor policy was really to prevail on the American Continent and provide a foundation upon which 21 free and independent American republics could establish peaceful and mutually beneficial relations among themselves and with the rest of the world.

The Seventh International Conference of American States, meeting at Montevideo in December 1933, offered an opportunity for a farreaching move in this direction. There, a solid foundation was laid for a new structure of inter-American relations built on lines so broad that the entire program of principles was of universal application. At that meeting, the American republics took effective action for the maintenance of inter-American peace, agreed upon non-intervention, and adopted an economic program of common benefit based on the rule of equal treatment. During the years which immediately followed, the United States gave tangible proofs of its determination to act in accordance with the newly created system of inter-American relations.

At the same time we inaugurated a new policy in the sphere of economic relations. In the summer of 1934, this country adopted the reciprocal-trade-agreements program, designed to restore and expand international commerce through the reduction of unreasonable trade barriers and the general reestablishment of the rule of equality of commercial treatment. This program proved to be the greatest constructive effort in a world racing toward economic destruction. In the meantime, other phases of international relations were undergoing further and rapid deterioration. Efforts to achieve international security through the reduction and limitation of armaments were unsuccessful. The long and weary conferences at Geneva during which plan after plan failed of adoption showed that the world was not ready to grasp an opportunity for action which, had it been

taken, might have prevented subsequent disasters. This and the notice given by Japan in December 1934 of her intention to terminate the Washington Treaty for the Limitation of Naval Armaments opened the way for a new armament race.

At this juncture, Italy announced her intention to secure control over Ethiopia-by force of arms, if necessary. While there was still a possibility for an amicable settlement of the difficulties between Italy and Ethiopia, the attitude of the Government of the United States was made clear on Sepember 13, 1935, in a statement which read in part as follows:

"Under the conditions which prevail in the world today, a threat of hostilities anywhere cannot but be a threat to the interests-political, economic, legal and social-of all nations. Armed conflict in any part of the world cannot but have undesirable and adverse effects in every part of the world. All nations have the right to ask that any and all issues between whatsoever nations be resolved by pacific means. Every nation has the right to ask that no nations subject it and other nations to the hazards and uncertainties that must inevitably accrue to all from resort to arms by any two."

During the summer of 1935 under the influence of these rapidly unfolding developments threatening the peace of the world the Congress enacted a statute known as the Neutrality Act of 1935. The purpose of this act was to reduce the risks of our becoming involved in war. Unfortunately, it contained as its principal feature the provision for a rigid embargo on export of arms to belligerents. This provision was adopted under the influence of a fallacious concept temporarily accepted by a large number of our people that this country's entrance into the World War had been brought about by the sale of arms to belligerents and the machinations of so-called "international bankers".

It was clear then, and has become even clearer since, that a rigid embargo on export of arms might have an effect the opposite of that which was intended. On the occasion of the signing of the act, the President pointed out that "history is filled with unforeseeable situations" and that conditions might arise in which the wholly inflexible provision for an arms embargo "might drag us into war instead of keeping us out”. I myself repeatedly pointed out that in addition to the unforeseeable consequences of the provision itself reliance upon that concept might mean the closing of our eyes to manifold dangers in other directions and from other sources.

By 1938, there was no longer any doubt that the existence of the arms embargo provision was definitely having the effect of making wide