- 04 Nov 2023 12:58
#15294247
November 4, Saturday
“Cash and carry” law ends United States arms embargo
President Roosevelt today signs the new Neutrality Act repealing the embargo on the export of arms to belligerent countries. His signature releases at least £44 million of arms ordered by Britain and France before the embargo came into effect with the declaration of war.
Between 300 and 400 aircraft are said to be waiting in crates in American ports for shipment to Britain and France, and orders for at least another 2,500 have been held up.
Congress passed the Neutrality Act in 1935 and renewed it in 1936 and 1937. It was backed by isolationists who believed that America was pressured into war against its interests in 1917 and who insist that it must remain neutral and keep out of any European conflict.
On September 21st the President went to Congress and asked it to repeal the law. The Senate responded on October 28th and the House of Representatives followed.
The vote reflects a perceptible shift in American public opinion towards the Allies, due mainly to stories of Nazi atrocities.
In theory the embargo affected all belligerents, so its lifting could allow Germany, as well as the Allies, to buy arms from American factories. In practice Britain and France control the seas, so the lifting of the embargo is being hailed as a great victory for the Allies.
Jews told to form ghetto in Warsaw
Today the Gestapo orders Warsaw’s Jews to move into an area of the city which will be designated as a ghetto. They have taken 24 hostages whom they will shoot if the Jews do not comply. The area will eventually be surrounded by barbwire and placed under guard.
With the conquest of Poland, some two million Jews have come under Nazi rule. The victorious German soldiers have been taught since their schoolboy days to hate the Jews as the age-old “enemies of the German people.”
It is no surprise, then, that 5,000 Jews have already been killed and countless numbers terrorized in random attacks. More than a million live in, or have fled eastwards into, the Soviet-occupied zone, but there is little hope for those trapped in the General Government area governed by Hans Frank.
Just three weeks after the invasion a senior SS official, Reinhart Heydrich, outlined plans to clear western Poland of Jews. They are to be moved east and “resettled” in labor camps and ghettoes.
Adolf Eichmann, a former emigration officer, has been put in charge of resettlement and the movement of Jews to Poland. He sent a transport of Czech Jews to Lublin last month; many fear that the Nazis intend to move all Jews under their control into the General Government area’s cramped conditions.
How Britain’s wives and children cope when the men are called up
Nearly a million British men have been called up to join the services, and the wives and families they have left behind are in many cases experiencing financial hardship. The average pay of a private soldier, naval rating or aircraftman is 2/- (10p/45¢) a day, of which married men allot half to their families. The wife of a private therefore receives 7/- a week stopped from her husband’s pay, and a government allowance of 17/-, plus 5/- for the first child and 3/- for the second. The money is paid weekly at the post office. Average wages on the eve of the war were £3/9/- (£3.45/$15.39) for men, £1/12/6 (£1.62½p/$7.25) for women. Many service wives with young children have to find part-time work or home work such as sewing to make ends meet. Meanwhile the cost of living is rising by over ten percent.
There is a wedding boom, many couples marrying before the man is called up. The number has increased by 100,000 over 1938, reaching 459,000. But despite the call-up there are still 1,270,000 unemployed. Family life for many revolves round visiting their evacuated children. For those who cannot afford to travel, cheap tickets at single fare are allowed once a month on Sundays. There are widespread complaints that the billeting allowances are inadequate. The 8/6 (42½p/$1.90) a week has been increased to 10/6 for boys over 15, but hosts say that they often have to feed boys of 11 and upwards out of their own pockets. The government has brought in compulsory contributions from parents of 6/- a week. In the absence of air raids, many evacuees are heading home.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke