While the Neutrality Bill constitutes the major legislative problem in the United States at the present time, and the isolationist. bloc is doing its utmost to defeat President Roose-vel's intention, an event of extreme importance is taking place related to American defence plans, That is the transference of the bulk of the American fleet to Hawaii on a series of manceuvres shrouded in secrecy. It has long been contended that the American naval defence line lay somewhere in the Pacific, and, although after the September crisis of 1938 when Europe was on the brink of war and a special Atlantic fleet comprised mainly of new cruisers was created for the Atlantic after the transference of the American flet through the Panama Canal, there has been no deviation from: the cardinal principles of this policy. It is now stated that as long as the British fleet comprises no menace to the safety of the United States—and naturally could not be considering that its major purposes are now directed against Germany in the North Sea and the Atlantic—the Pacific problem on which American naval experts have been labouring so long does not diminish in importance but increases in view of the uncertain and bewildering changes in strategical plans, especially affecting Soviet Russia, which now emerges as a naval power although not on the same scale as Japan. Little information has been published regarding the purport of the American naval manceuvres and the exercises to be held off Hawaii. Formerly, American naval movements have been a common topic of newspaper information and comment, but the latest arrangements reveal nothing beyond the concentration of a large number of. warships in the Pacific at a time when the naval activities of other powers are centred elsewhere, It seems a foregone con-
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