The Embargo Problem The United States is likely to be
the deciding factor. If Mr. Roosevelt's new Government is prepared to lay an embargo on arms for Japan, for which public opinion in America is probably ready, and France and Britain co-operate, no serious opposition is to be anticipated elsewhere. Soviet Russia, it is true, will enter into no agreements, but Soviet Russia has little in the way of munitions to export, and would not export them to Japan if she had. With the new Congress in session, legislation giving the President the necessary powers could be rushed through quite easily, but America is so fully pre-occupied with domestic concerns that the President may be reluctant to occupy Congress with the embargo question at all for the moment. In that case this country's position would be difficult. It is obviously a case for international, not isolated, action, but the view expressed by Sir John Simon ten days ago, that it was a horrible thing that profit should be made out of the supply of the means of provoking fighting which is neither necessary nor just, is not in itself affected by the failure of other countries to take that view or to act on it. On every ground it is earnestly to be hoped that common international action at Geneva will prove possible.
* * * *
Previous page
