PRESIDENT HOOVER.

Grey River Argus, 5 March 1929, Page 5

PRESIDENT HOOVER.

INAUGURAL SPEECH. Dry Law Bugbear. IMPERIALISM DISAVOWED. (Australian & N.Z. Cable Assn.) (Received March 4 at 5.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON, March 4. In his address on thb occasion of his inauguration, President Hoover said: —“If we survey the situation of our nation, both home and abroad, we find many satisfactions. We find some •auses for concern. The most malign of all dangers is a disregard and disobedience of the law. Crime is increasing. Confidence in rigid, speedy justice is decreasing. I am not prepared to believe that it indicates the impotence of the Federal Government to enforce its laws. It is only in part due to the additional burdens imposed upon our judicial system by the Eighteenth Amendment. The problem is much wider than that. Many influences had increasingly complicated and weakened our law enforcement organisation long before the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment. Justice must not fail because the agencies of its enforcement are either delinquent or inefficiently organised. To consider these evils, to find their remedy, is the most sore necessity of our times.” Referring to Prohibition, President Hoover said:*—“Our whole system of self-government will crumble, either if the officials elect what laws they will enforce, or the citizens elect what laws they will support. The worst evil of a disregard, for some law is that it destroys respect for all law. For our citizens t 0 patronise the violation of a particular law on the ground that hey are opposed to it, is destructive if the* very basis of all that protection □f life homes and property which they rightly claim under other laws. If citizens d 0 not like any law. their duty, as honest men and women, is to discourage its violation. Their right ;.s openly to work for its repeal. I ntend to appoint a National Commisiion for a searching investigation of the whole structure of the Federal system 0 T jurisprudence, to include the me hod of enforcing th e Eighteenth Amendment, and the causes of abuse under it.”

Referring to world peace, Mr Hoover said: —“The United States freely accepts th e profound truth that its own progress, prosperity and peace are in- ' erlocked with the progress prosperity |md peace of all humanity. The whole world is at peace. The dangers to a continuation of this peace to-day are largely the fear and suspicion which still haunt the world. No suspicion or fear can rightly be directed toward our ountry. Those who have a true understanding of America know we have no desire for territorial expansion, or for ihe economic or other domination of other peoples. Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom. Ou r form o t government is ill adapted to the responsibilities which inevitably follow the permanent limitation of the independence' of peoples. Superficial observers seem to fihd no destiny for our abounding increase in population, wealth and power except that o f imperialism. They fail to see that the American people are engrossed in the building for themselves of a new economic'system, a new social system, a new political system, all of which are characterised, by the aspirations of freedom of opportunity, and thereby are the om imperialism.” President Hoover referred t 0 the Kellogg Treaty thusly:—“The recent treaty for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy seta an advanced standard in our conception of the relations of nations. Ito acceptance should pave th e way to a greater limitation of armament.” Referring t 0 the world Court, President ' Hoover said: —“American statesmen were among the first to propose, and have constantly urged upon the world, the establishment of a tribunal for the settlement of controversies of a justifiable character. The Permanent Court of International Justice. in its major purpose, is thus peculiarly identified with American ideals and American sta.'esmanship. N o more potent instrumentality for this purpose has ever been conceived, and no other is practicable of establishment. The reservations placed upon our adherence should not be misinterpreted. The United States seeks by these reservations no special privilege or advantage, but only to clarify our relations t 0 advisory opinions and other matters which ar e subsidiary to the major purpose of the Court. A way should, and I believe will, be found by which we may take our proper place in a movement so fundamental to the progress of peace.”