Later the President asked Congress to appropriate $31,622,000 to finance immediate work on naval and air bases approved in the Vinson Naval Bill. He also asked the House Appropriations Committee to authorize the letting of contracts immediately for the complete naval base programme which calls for approximately $15,000,000. Previously he had asked for $18,000,000 in immediate defence appropriations for similar projects, Mr. James Scrugham, Democrat of Nevada and chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Naval Appropriations, said the President's requests would be considered in connection with the $688,000,000 regular Navy Department budget bill. He said the total requests for the Navy this year would be about $800.000,000, a peacetime record.
The Naval Base Bill will provide nine new or reinforced United States Navy bases in the Pacific, giving the nation a new line of defence linking Alaska and the Philippines by way of Hawaii, Midway and Wake Islands—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.