SHARP REBUFF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 102, 2 May 1935, Page 7

SHARP REBUFF.

ROOSEVELT ANGRY.

Annoyed at Publication of Evidence at Inquiry. U.S.A. AND FOREIGN LANDS. (United P.A.-Electric Telegraph-Copyright) WASHIXGTOX, May 1. President Roosevelt took what is believed to be unprecedented action by invoking his power as Commander-in-Chief of the Army to rebuke the chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Mr. J. J. McSwain.

The reason was the publication of the evidence of Brigadier-General Charles Kilbourne—until recently Assistant Chief of Staff —pertaining to the neutrality of a nearby territory in the event of a war emergency.

At a recent sitting of the committee General Kilbourne said it might be necessary to seize British and French islands in the Atlantic to prevent an enemy utilis.'uig them as air bases.

The President flatly repudiated any such intention, but apparently the part of General Kilbourne's evidence which ho found most annoying was his reference to the "camouflaged" section of the Air Base Bill now under consideration providing for the building of a military aviation base near the Canadian border under the guise of an "intermediate station for trans-Continental flights."

Mr. Roosevelt's letter to Mr. McSwain stated that hereafter such evidence must either be kept secret or presented to him for approval before it is published.

"I desire to inform the committee," said the President, "that certain portions of the evidence of General Kilbourne, especially those relating to the Canadian border, do not represent the policy of the Government or the Com-mander-in-Chief, nor do they reflect the views, purposes or motives of the United States Government.

"This Government does not envisage any possibility of a change in the friendly relationship between the United States and any foreign country. It accepts as an accomplished fact the peace conditions cemented by many generations of friendship between the Canadian and American people, and it expects permanently to live up to, in letter as well as spirit, the treaties relating to permanent disarmament on the boundary."

SERIOUS MOTOR STRIKE.

THOUSANDS IDLE IN U.S.A.

DETROIT, May 1

The strike at the Chevrolet Company's works at Toledo has spread to Cincinnati, where additional men have walked out. The strike has also necessitated the Fisher body works at Cleveland being closed down, rendering idle 9000 men.