APPROVAL IN AMERICA

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21219, 16 September 1940, Page 8

APPROVAL IN AMERICA

FIRST DRAFT IN NOVEMBER PRESIDENT’S WIDE POWER (United Press Asn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 The United States Senate approved the final draft of the Conscription Bili and sent it to the House of Representatives, which also approved the measure. President Roosevelt is to sign the bill on Monday. The first draft of men between the ages of 21 and 35 is expected to be called up on November 1. Immediately after the passage of the Conscription Bill Mr Roosevelt asked Congress for an additional 1,600,000,000 dollars to provide for expenses in the first year’s training, for which 800,000 men may be called up. The Senate earlier sent the bill back to a conference after a deadlock on the revised industrial draft provision. Immediately after the Senate’s action, the conference of representatives of both Houses met and restored the original provision to the Bill, empowering the President without restriction to take over at “just rentals” plants which refused defence contracts. Powerful Sea Forces The United States Secretary of the Navy, Colonel W. F. Knox, after five days at sea with the battle fleet, said at Honolulu that American sea forces were the most powerful and most effective in the whole world. He stated that after his return to Washington he would do everything possible to make Pearl Harbour the most impregnable bulwark of American defences in the Pacific. Colonel Knox added that he believed the army and air strength in the islands needed urgent expansion. He understood that new bombers could be sent. “The United States must revise the earlier concept that safety lies in insularity, based on the great fortune that broad oceans stretch on both sides of us,” said Colonel Knox. “With new weapons available to aggressors, and when might alone rules the world, we know there will be no safety which does not provide safety and security for the entire western world.”