American Notes of the Week
(By Cable)
PRESIDENT HOOVER'S Armistice Day speech was sufficiently comprehensive to please everybody for different reasons. His reaffirmation of the American determination to have nothing to do with " sanctions " is felt to need special emphasis abroad just now. The belief is current here that the British public has lately been encouraged to imagine that the joint Hoover-MacDonald statement implied some understanding which had bridged the gulf between European commitment to and American avoidance of " sanctions." The fact is that the statement meant no more than it said. The contrary belief, like Commander Kenworthy's recent suggestion that America might contract not to munition an aggressor or be led to accept the ruling of the League as to who is the aggressor, is at least questionable. Mr. MacDonald's recent references to the freedom of the seas are considered strangely optimistic in their apparent assumption that problems will disappear if simply ignored. President Hoover is more realistic and refuses to assume that war will not recur. It is believed here that if America achieves her aim at the London Con- ference the conditions which formerly dictated her interest in the freedom of the seas will be reversed and Britain rather than America will stand in the greatest need of safeguards against interference with shipping. However, that is for Britain to ponder. Sentiment is all very well, but there does seem to be a need for a frank facing of concrete realities.
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