Washington, June 2.
Definite action to revise the Neutrality Act was taken today when the House Foreign Aflairs Committee started drafting a project which it will send to Congress on completion.
Present at the Committee meeting to enlighten the members of the State Department's attitude towards this questigp, were Messrs. R. W. Moore, Counsellor, G. H. Hackworth, senior legal adviser, and Savage, legal adviser.
During the meeting, Representatives Hamilton Fish and George Holden Tinkham proposed that a new Chairman be elected to preside over the Committee in place of Representative Sol Bloom.
But excepting for their two dissenting voices, the Committee voted unanimously\ to retain Mr. Bloom as Chairman.
Parleys on the neutrality revision project centred about the first section of Mr. Bloom's scheme. This, the body voted by a clear majority, advocating that the President be given greater liberty in invoking the Neutrality Act.
At present, the Chief Executive is first compelled to determine whether a state of war exists and only then to proclaim application of the Act.
The new project would authorize the President to declare that a state of war existed when the peace of the United States or the lives of American citizens appeared to be endangered. It would thus facilitate his application of the Act.
Republican Representatives proposed changes in the wording of Mr. Bloom's project, but did not attempt io modify the principle involved.—Havas.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.