AMERICA AND PEACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23023, 28 April 1938, Page 12

AMERICA AND PEACE

A summary end has been put, by the American House of Representatives, to a proposal that the United States should promote international action against aggressive nations: the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House has adversely reported on the proposal, and a vote of the House has accordingly blocked its progress. When introduced, it could be seen to involve steps so sharply divergent from traditional American policy that opposition was bound to be met. Its chief purport was to displace the existing neutrality law with an unofficial boycott of aggressors. The naming of these was to be left to the President, and such international agreements as the Briand-Kellogg Pact and the NinePower Treaty guaranteeing China's sovereign independence were to be touchstones of national conduct in this respect. In the event of this naming of any aggressor, Congress would formally deprecate the violation of treaties, advocate a boycott, and request the President to call a convention of treaty signatories with a view to the imposition of an official international boycott. Thus the proposal turned away from the policy of isolation and sought to institute American leadership in a practical plan for world peace. Apparently, so revolutionary an idea would not have been mooted unless Mr. Roosevelt was favourable to it. He and his Secretary of State, Mr. Hull, have frankly endeavoured to create a national opinion sympathetic with expansion of American influence abroad. They have had only meagre success, however, and the attitude of the House suggests that its members, sensitive to popular feeling, have been reluctant to depart from customary principles. No doubt the habitual disinclination of Congress to yield decisive power to the President in foreign affairs—whatever the constitution may Eay—has prompted rejection of the proposal.