Arms Embargo and Peace

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 160, 10 July 1939, Page 7

Arms Embargo and Peace

Abolition Best Guarantee

FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO EMBARRASS ROOSEVELT United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Sunday, 9.20 p.m. WASHINGTON, July 9. A declaration that 34 Senators are lighting to a finish the attempt to lift the arms embargo has dealt the Roosevelt campaign to revise the Neutrality Act this session a stunning and perhaps fatal blow. As Senator Johnson has. refused to give names tho Administration is suggesting that he is perhaps “exaggerating," but it is admitted that half that number could stage a prolonged fili buster. Meanwhile it is not certain that the Bill will even bo reported down as the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee is reported to bo split in the proportion of 10 to 10. The chairman (Senator Pittman) has postponed to-morrow's decisive meeting until Tuesday, indicating that the Administration is still trying to win over the opposition. The Administration states that the majority of the committee undoubtedly opposes the arms embargo but cannot agree on the means to get rid of it. The New Y'ork Times and New York Herald-Tribune are both advocating getting rid of the embargo by repealing the entire Neutrality Act instead ot making another attempt to agree upon a satisfactory amendment. They suggest that such action might offer an acceptable basis for a compromise. “It is increasingly clear,' 5 says the New York Times, in an editorial, “that the best hope of keeping the United States at peace does not lie in a policy of attempting to isolate us from the consequences of a general war but in a policy making the outbreak of war less likely. If potential warmakers are told as they would bo by the repeal of the Neutrality Act that American supplies will be available to nations fighting against them in self-defence, while tho same supplies will be beyond their reach because they do not control the seas, they will have an additional highly important reason for avoiding war. In this sense the repeal of the law would be a peace and not a war measure. It would throw the United States influence where it ought to be, for our safety as well as our self-respect—on tho side of international law and order."