News of the Week 91HE direct implications of Mr. Hoover's
new dis-
armament proposals arc discussed on a later page. Here it may be observed that public opinion in America is clearly behind them, and that the President's action has no doubt increased his chances of re-election, The proposals actually concern Lausanne as well as Geneva, in view. of -the plain intimation received from Washington that unless Europe can do something sub- stantial about disarmament, it will be idle to look to the United States to do anything at all about debts. It is all to the good that that truth should be driven home ,at this juncture. There may be no logical con- nexion between debt payments and armaments expendi- ture, since the former involve problems of transfer which he internal payments required by naval and military fiutlity affect very little, if at all. It may be true that America's own armament expenditure has increased Since 1914 in a higherproportion than any other country's except Japan's. But it remains the fact that the American people, with whom it ultimately lies to remit debt payments, is firmly resolved not to remit them While Europe spends -what it is spending on armaments,: and Mr. Hoover does the whole-world a service in empha- Sizing that -now. He is in no position to make an offer. * * * * He cannot say that if Europe reduces armaments the United States will reduce or remit debt payments. All he can do is what he has done, to warn Europe that unless it is ready to fulfil the conditions that America has rightly or wrongly laid down, it can have no hope of securing what it wants at the hands of the American people. •
