The Voices of America Several important voices have been wafted
across the Atlantic in the past week. Attention has naturally centred chiefly on President Roosevelt's observation to the Press last Saturday that the fortnight's holiday on which he was enter- ing might be cut short by events in Europe. Official circles in London, Washington and Berlin have all professed to find the remark cryptic, and it may have simply indicated the President's general consciousness of the uncertainties of the situation. There was at all events nothing cryptic about the speech broadcast on Tuesday by Senator Pittman, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, though it will hardly rank among those utterances which make for good understanding and goodwill. The Senator denounced the British policy of appeasement as immoral surrender to the dictators, and declared that America would fight to a man in self-defence and support " the oppressed Govern- ments " by every means short of war—which does not seem substantially different from Mr. Chamberlain's policy at Munich. More important is the speech delivered the same day in the House of Representatives by Mr. Carl Vinson, chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, commending the Bill to provide over LI o,000,000 for work on naval bases, including the strategic Pacific island of Guam, and approv- ing the sale of aeroplanes to Britain and France as definitely to America's advantage. America is no more disposed than this country to grudge necessary expenditure on defence. And the American Government, as Mr. Cordell Hull's striking and important Note published at Geneva on Wed- nesday shows, is markedly more emphatic than our own in its support of the League of Nations.
