PEACE BANQUET

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 46, 24 February 1913, Page 7

PEACE BANQUET

SPEECH BY PRESIDENT TAFT. By Telegraph.-Preas Assocfatlon.-*Copyrlgut. NEW YORK, 83rd February. President Taft, speaking at a peace banquet, remarked, apropos of the peace treaties which had been made between France and Britain, that he had been deeply disappointed at the action of the United States Senate. He deprecated the absurd talk about getting into a fight with Britain over the Panama Canal tolls) and Bftid that America was ready to arbitrate. * L'Senator Root has, remarked the New York Post on the 36th of last month, introduced a BUI to repeal that part of the Panama Canal Act which exempts American coastwise vessels from the pay ment of tolls. The sentiment is widespread that the honour of the nation demands such repeal, or, if not, the submission of the question to arbitration. There is almost literally no indication of public approval of the exemption, still less of an insistence upon it and re* fuaal to have it passed upon by an impartial tribunal. But, so far ns the feeling in the Senate is concerned, it seems that, if any step is to bo taken toward the undoing of the toll-exemp-tion blunder, a straight-out repeal would be more acceptable than arbitration. We doubt not that, if the sentiment of the country is brought adequately to the notice of Congress, the repeal will be effected. Tho exemption has been earmarked both as a violation of the nation's plain promise and as the grant of a subsidy to an interest already completely screened from foreign competition. The case has recent been set forth with great effectiveness in several ways. The brief but emphatic letter of ox-Senator Edmunds to Mr. R. U. Johnson, printed in tho Sun this morning, should carry great weight. Mr. Horace White made a telling (statement of the cane in a letter to The Times two or three days ago. Incidentally, Mr. White mentioned a point of no little importance which haa Been generally^ overlooked— that tlie Bill was passed with scant consideration in tho closing days of a \vearisome_ session and on the eve of the Presidential election. What Congress did in haste it BhouM be glad ot the opportunity to amend at leisure.]