Mr. Roosevelt Loses The decision of President Roosevelt that he
cannot press his neutrality proposals on the Senate this session with any hope of success must be deplored as much by the President himself as it will be everywhere in this country. While the neutrality question closely affects the situation of Great Britain in the event of war, and has a direct bearing on her prospect of being involved in war, the decision regarding it is for Americans alone and we have no title to cavil. The position is that in the absence of a new Neutrality Act the export of munitions from the United States to a belligerent in time of war is completely banned, though such traffic is fully recognised as normal under international law. Mr. Cordell Hull describes this closing of the market against States which, like Great Britain and France, could both pay for such munitions and fetch them in their own ships as definitely unneutral, but some Americans appear to think it better to risk precipitating war by the rigidity of their isolationism than to yield half an inch in the hope of averting war. There is no evidence that the United States as a whole is opposed to the President's proposals—much, indeed to the contrary—and little doubt that in the event of actual war Congress would quickly adopt a neutrality measure helpful to the democracies. But the Senate's present action must inevitably have the effect of encouraging Herr Hitler instead of checking him.
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