HOOVER AND ROOSEVELT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 415, 27 December 1932, Page 4

HOOVER AND ROOSEVELT

Day by daj'" people outside of America arp learning more of the weakness 'imposed upon her diplomacy by the strength of her Constitution, and the more they learn of it the less they like it. j Six weeks have passed since Pre- | sident Hoover suffered a crushI ing defeat at the polls and a new ; Congress was elected in which j his opponents were given large { majorities of both Chambers. | Yet he still holds ofhce and will j continue to do so for ten weeks | more, lagging like the veteran. "superfluous on the stage" with but a shadow of his former authority, yet retaining for a total period of nearly four months the | full measure of legal power. But j this statement is f ar from telling i the story of Mr. Hoover's consti- | tutional embarrassments. The jfounders of the American Con- ' stitution, whose wisdom is idol-

t ised in their own country and greatly admired by competent j authorities elsewhere, were less l anxious to provide a machine ' that would get things doiie than I one that would prevent their beI ing dono- too fast. With their j eyes upon the tyranny from from which they had escapec. they declined to entrust any American Executive with the immense powers vested in a Bri- ; tish Government through its ' control of the House of Com- ' mons, and perpetual friction anc. ! frequent strife between the President and Congress are the re1 sults of their division of those ! powers. The unfortunate Mr. | Hoover, who during the last | three years has had to fight | Congress as well as the depresI sion, may find that his severe defeat and the irresponsibility of a "lame duck" session have made it more intractable than ever. If allowance be made for these i extraordinary difficulties of his iposition it can hardly be deniec. | that President Hoover is doing t ! very well. In a message to Conjgress a year ago he urged "the prompt ratification of the war debts moratorium" — a ea!! which outside America was nc-t without a suggestion of irony since

every nation concerned except the one that proposed the moratorium had ratified it months before. In the same message Mr. Hoover put himself "on side" with American patriotism by declaring that he did not approve, "even in any remote sense, of the cancellation of debts to the United States," and that reparations were wholly a European problem with which they were not concerned. Congress disliked the moratorium, but put it through with an amendment condemning the reduction no less than the cancellation of war debts, and showed no sympathy whatever with the helpful parts of the message. But on one vital point there is no evidence that one of Mr. Hoover's pet delusion has been cured or even weakened. His faith in the power of the tariff — if it is given a fair chance — to give his country a "happy detachment from the troubles of the rest of the world," appears to be as strong as ever. Though President Hoover says that if Congress should decide to revive the Debt Commission the decision would meet his hearty approval ; his assumption that it will refuse to do so is regarded as well fiounded, and interest is therefore transferred

to the machinery which he proposes to set up on his own account "for further debt discussions with the nations which had not defaulted." We are told that Mr. Hoover's idea of linking up the debts problem with other phases of the world's economic troubles is generally approved in Congressional circles on the ground that "the nation should

receive some concessions in disarmament and trade in return for revision." But the scope of the Economic Conference will be rather dangerpusly enlarged if disarmament is to be brought into it, and Senator Swanson appears to express the Democratic view when he argues that on the war debts it would "be wiser for the United States to conduct separate negotiations." What the exact status and power of the President's commission would be we are unable to say, but it is natural that doubt should be expressed whether Britain, for instance, would care to negotiate with a commission whose authority would only last till March 4. The possibilities of immediate progress seem indeed to depend upon the co-operation of the President-elect, for which President Hoover makes a formal appeal in his message. But Mr. Roosevelt's attitude is described as "sympathetic, but firm against dividing responsibility with the President," which is much the same as saying, "I should like to help you, but I ean't." In spite of the President's powerful appeal it looks as though the United States will be unable to lead the world) before March 4.