Nov. 4.
With a rapidity which was not expected the United States' House of Representatives have taken action in connection with the new proposed neutrality legislation, by com~ pletely repealing the arms embargo' contained in the Neutrality Act which President Roosevelt has sought consistently to amend, and clearing the ground for the passage of a new Neutrality Bill, which it is expected will be passed in short order, It is interesting to note that the motion for repeal was one: of three in the form of instructions directed to the joint committee of both Houses. The first of these, forbidding Federal agencies to extend credits to belligerents, was defeated by 228 votes to 196. The second favouring embargo on arms, and ammunition, but not aeroplanes and other non-lethal instruments of war was rejected by 244 votes to 179, a complete reversal of the voting on a similar motion last June, when it was passed by 214 votes to 173. There now remains: only one motion of instruction to the joint committee, That is for the repeal of the farms embargo, and President Roosevelt has won a victory in the bitter struggle against the isolationists who fought him step by step in the Senate, but apparently realized the futility of the' struggle in the Lower House where a week's debating settled the matter out of hand. And so the United States re~ gain that neutrality which was theirs until the passage of the enactment of last June, which was definitely non-neutral in charac~ ter, and tending to give an advantage to Germany which that country ought not to have. "A neutral hus the right to sell to) all belligerents, who can pay for what they want, and can' manage to receive the goods which they buy. The fact that Germany is unable to secure transportation of war material from the United States because of the Allied command of the seas, is no reason whatever why the Allies who'can pay for their requirements, and can transport them overseas should be deprived of whatever benefits can be derived from a state of complete neutrality on the part of the United States. It is consequently a sound argument that the provision which has now been re~ pealed was unjust, and it was the American Jove of justice which eventually prevailed against the isolationists.
It needs to be remembered that the action of President Roosevelt in pressing for the repeal of the arms embargo, and the remodelling of American neutrality legislation, was not the outcome of the commencement of war, though this may ultimately have influenced the voting in Congress. It will be remembered that the great fight for change took place in June last, long before there was anything "more than a suspicion, suspicion which was not generally held' by U. S. legislators,—that there would be an early war. It was with the idea that there
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.