The news that President Roosevelt has ordered the US. Navy Department to cancel the transfer of twenty motor torpedo boats to Great Britain will come as a painful surprise {0 those who believed from the reports originally. to hand that the whole transaction was on the verge of completion. But the Attorney General thas issued a ruling that the sale of the vessels to Britain would be a violation of a statute prohibiting the sending from American Jurisdic~ Hien "any vessel of war with any Intent or under any agreenient that such a vessel shall be livered to a belligerent." The law on which the ruling was based is at least twenty-three years old. and the Administration appear to have lost Sight of iL when coming to. the arrangement which they did. The' ruling apparently does not refer to other war material and as far as it is known at present there Is likely to be no statutory hindrance to the continued despateh Of aeroplanes and other war material to Great Britain, Had it been possible to have saaured the vessels in question they would have proved valuable adjunct to the forces which are necessary to patrol the British coast against the invasion which is expected in the near future. Nevertheless the situation is not. thereby worsened, for after all it amounts {9 the frustra Hien of a hope rather than anything in the shape ofa deprivation, The British Navy has suffered so comparatively little up to the pre sent that itis still more than, able to maintain the greatly extended blockade brought about by the surrender of France, though in a war of this sort every little docs undoubtedly help. Tt would seem now that the only means whereby these vessels "could now be made available would be by the passage of a special enactment by Congress specifically' permitting such a thing to be done, Tt is unlikely that Congress would be willing to consent to the passage of any such legislation, and, because "of the very apparent desire of the United States to build up a Navy sufficiently strong to meet the menace' which" the "Administration. sully realizes, no real reason why they should do so. This new development is naturally a disappointment, but not a particularly grievous one.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.