To the Editor of the Crimson:

The present debate about the repeal or modification of the Neutrality Act reveals one startling misconception on the part of the public. Between the proposed modifications and repeal, there is in fact no practical difference.

The only important provisions of the Act left in force are the prohibition of the arming of American merchant ships, and the prohibition of the entry of American ships into war zones. Evasion of the spirit of the Act has resulted in a handful of incidents. An effort has now been launched to use these incidents to repeal the Act and make possible, or rather, inevitable, further incidents on a big scale.

The warmongers tell us that because the American flag has been fired on, it must be systematically exposed to fire; that because American seamen have been endangered or killed, thousands more American seamen must be exposed to worse dangers; and that because some American ships under Panama registry have been sunk, it is necessary to provide for the sinking of great numbers of American ships under American registry.

The Act has been eminently successful in the purpose for which it was intended: keeping us out of war. Therefore, and for that reason only, the warmongers want to do away with it.

In the last war 35 armed merchant ships were sunk. There is no case on record of an armed merchant ship disposing of an attacker.

Submarines and airplanes have improved since the last war. But if our merchant ships are to be armed, it will be necessary to rob the navy for gun crews and some guns, and to use a large quantity of World War weapons. The drain on the Navy, the complete inadequacy of the training of the Merchant Marine for combat, and, in many cases, the unsuitability of the deck structure for gun platforms, all form strong arguments against the dangerous and useless gesture of arming our merchant ships.

Last winter, only four per cent of the lease-lend cargoes were lost. The principal danger to Britain lay in the cumulative shipping losses. But Churchill now proclaims that there has been a sixty-six per cent reduction in these losses. Land states that ships are being built at least as fast as they are being sunk. Britain's food reserves have reached a new high. There is no need to send American ships into the war zones, and if there were, the ships should simply be given to the British.

Herbert Agar admitted in a recent speech that the people are against war, and that if we are to be dragged in, it must be by sending enough of our ships into danger to create the necessary long and bloody succession of incidents. The attacks on the Neutrality Act have one purpose and one purpose only: the creation of incidents by the exploitation of incidents.

Let all patriots oppose this effort hopelessly to entangle American now in a war which certainly cannot be fought until considerably later, if it must be fought at all, and for which Auchinleck and Wavell have already demanded an AEF.