REBUKE BY PRESIDENT

Waikato Times, Volume 117, Issue 19565, 2 May 1935, Page 7

REBUKE BY PRESIDENT

UNPRECEDENTED ACTION. TAKEN BY MR ROOBEVELT. PROMINENT OFFICIAL WARNED. United Press Assn. —Elec. Tel. Copyright. WASHINGTON, April 30. President Roosevelt took what is believed to be unprecedented action to-day by invoking his power as Com-mander-in-Chief of the Army to rebuke the chairman of the Military Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Mr J. J. McSwain, for publishing the evidence of BrigadierGeneral Charles Kllbourne —until recently Assistant Chief of Staff —pertaining to the neutrality of a nearby territory In the event of a war emergency. At a reoent sitting of the committee General Kllbourne said It might be necessary to seize British and French islands in the Atlantic to prevent an enemy utilising them as air bases. The President flatly repudiated any such intention, but apparently the part of General Kilbourne’s evidence which he found most annoying was his reference to the “camouflaged” section of the Air Base Bill now under consideration providing for the building of a military aviation base near the Canadian border under the guise of an “intermediate station for transcontinental flights.”

Must Be Kept Secret. Mr Roosevelt's letter to 'Mr McSwain stated that hereafter such evidence must either be kept secret or presented to him for approval before it is published. " I desire to inform the committee,” said the President, "that certain portions of the evidence of General Kllbourne, especially those relating to the Canadian border, do not represent the polioy of the Government nor the Commander-In-Chief, nor do they reflect the views, purposes or motives of the United States Government. “ This Government does not envisage any possibility of a change in the friendly relationship between the United States and any foreign country. It accepts as an accomplished faot the peaoe conditions cemented by many generations of friendship between the Canadian and American people, and It expects permanently to live up to, In letter as well as spirit, the treaties relating to permanent disarmament on the boundary."