AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Snt,—The committee of experts has found that an embargo on oil would be effective only if the United States were to limit her exports to Italy to the normal level of her exports before 1935. The attitude of the American Senate however plainly shows that it is in no mood to impose any such restriction or to assist the League. Nor are the broader views of the State Department likely to prevail without a resurgence of that wider public opinion which was responsible for the American embargo on arms but which is not likely to be stirred by the hypothetical implications of the report of the committee of experts. But if, by the actual imposition of an oil embargo by the League, the rising figures of American exports brought it home to the American people that they are in fact directly responsible for the continuance of a war which they have already condemned, and that the proprietors of their oil are profiting by it, it is by no means improbable that that wider opinion will again make itself felt. There is nothing like the force and stigma of a demonstrated actuality.
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