U.S. NAVY BILL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 18 May 1928, Page 9

U.S. NAVY BILL.

A HOLD-UP THREATENED.

PRESIDENT’S DEMAND' FOR SHIPS

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH—COPYRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WASHINGTON, May 16. President Coolidge surprised the House and the Senate by a sudden and vigorous insistence that the navy build ships. His chief opposition is a small group of Radicals in the Senate, who threaten to talk the Naval Bill to death. , Senator Curtis, after conferring with Mr. Wilbur, Secretary to the Navy, offered little hope for the idea of holding Congress long enough to break the threatened filibuster. Some encouragement is seen in Senator Johnson’-s statement that he would be satisfied with two. days’ discussion in the Senate of a Rill which had been blocking the Naval Bill. The Assistant-Secretary to the Navy, Mr. Robinson, talked with the leaders of both Houses, urging that the Bill should not be permitted to be talked to death.

A SENATOR’S ORITIOISM. WASHINGTON, May 15. The failure of President Coolidge to force action in the Senate on the Naval Bill, providing for IX cruisers and one aircraft carrier, which had been approved by the naval committee, was attacked by Representative Black in the Senate to-day. He said that under the spur of. the pacifists the naval affairs committee forgot the country and ran away "with the 17 ships Bill to come in with a-15 cruiser Bill. He urged that immediate appropriations be made to 1 build three fleets of submarines which had previously been authorised. “If they do not do that, the Republican Party and this Administration are exactly 100 per cent, rot on the naval question,” he added.