Once more the United Stitii Congress has frustrilted the desire
of the President to take a step that would make for the stabilisation of peace. Mr. Roosevelt's recent warning that Americans trading with either of the belligerents in the present war would do so at their own risk, and the subsequent embodiment of that prin- ciple in a new Neutrality Bill, inspired confident hopes that the claims for neutral trade which involved America in war with Britain in 1812, and came near having the same effect a century later, were to be finally abandoned. That would mean that the danger of a League of Nations blockade being broken by American vessels insisting on their rights as neutrals would disappear once for all. But Congress, it appears, will have none of this. There is a latent but persistent nationalism in the United States which revolts at the idea of surrendering any imagined right in any circumstances, even though the forces of order in the world would be sensibly strengthened thereby. The Chairman of the Foreign Relations Com- mittee of the Senate wants to prolong the existing makeshift Neutrality Bill for a year. The occupant of the similar post in the House of Representatives declares that though the United States may not formally abandon her neutral rights she will certainly never fight for them. The position is uncertain and confused, but it has reluctantly to be recognised that Europe can count on the United States for little practical help in the organisation of peace.
