Possibility that the bill would receive quick approval in the house was seen in the "evaporation" opposition to the measure in the House Naval Affairs Comittee, Although the committee submitted Navy Department. officials to critical examination during hearings on the bill, 'Ar. Joseph Shannon, Democratic Representative of Missouri, was the only' Committee member to offer a dissent vole when the hearings were losed today.
'The Committee eliminated the pro-pored base at Jacksonville. Fla, pend-Ihe further study. Some experts [favour construction of the proposed Florida base at Miami rather' than Jacksonville The Vinson Bill also provides for strengthening of United States de-{fences in the Caribbean and southern Atlantic as part of the nation's plan for joint defence of the Wester Hemisphere, particularly the Panama Canal. The largest single appropriation, $9,138,000, will be spent to begin Jconstruction of an impregnable air and aval base at San Juan, Puerto Rice.
'The bill approved by the Committee today included provision for all Harbour, JPacife bases listed as "urgent" in the jorehouse anid access [Hepburn report, Although the new defence system' pushes the United, coes Solo Canal Zone-Sporsonnel ba States frontier 3,000 miles beyond, Hawaii, the backbone of the Pacific Siaban alert storehouse and defence line will be the Alaska-/Hawaii-Panama triangle based on San $35 Diego.
Jquslers: snout patients clinic and san Dlego—slk ofoers Among the most significant developments in the new Bill is the provision for great increases in. defence ex- He SE ep, ary palau storage anda and [penditure in Alaska and the proposed air base at Tongue Point, Ore. which will serve og a connecting Li between California bases and the new Alaskan bases.
"Naval bases in the Alaskan area will be essential in time of war." the [Hepburn report stated. "Such bases! fare necessary links in the patrol system of the eastern Pacific and for} the defence of Alaska and the Pacific North-west. From a strategic point of ow, the area of greatest imparlance is the Aleutian chain of Islands."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.