Evening star., 1930-06-24
Treaty Hurdles Opposition.


The London naval limitation treaty
is finally before the Senate for consid-
Grafton and action. BY an oyerwhelm-
ing vote the Senate foreign relations
favorably reported. and Senator Borah,
chairman, later laid the pact before the
Senate 1t is now on the executive cal
endar and can be called up at any time,
although the plan is not to get the
treaty up for consideration until the
President calls special session of the
Senate following the adjournment Of
Congress The treaty, however, has
successfully hurdled the opposition in
the foreign relations committee. 1t can
no longer be delayed in committee,
where it has rested for the last seven
weeks because of the tactics of Senator
Hiram Johnson OF California and other
opponents of the agreement.
The vote in the committee stood 16
to in favor of the treaty. Senator
Johnson was joined by Senators Moses
of New Hampshire and Robinson of In
diana, Republicans, and Shipstead OF
Minnesota. Farmer-Labor The fight
over the treaty is not yet ended by any
means. with the rule of unlimited de-
bate in the Senate in full force. But
once the treaty is before the Senate,
with no other business to interfere with
its continuous consideration, the op-
position must be prepared to talk or
vote. The indications at present are
that the opponents will not be able to
keep the debate running for a long
period, provided the supporters of the
treaty insist upon proceeding with its
consideration.
The opposition, however, continues to
demand delay. 1t is likely to seek in
every way to have the final vote on
ratification of the treaty postponed
until next November or December. 1t
is counting on the desire of many of
the Senators, even those favorabla to
the treaty, to get away from Wash
ington, and 1t is counting on the warm
of the treaty in the Senate are re-
sourceful. They may propose many
amendments and reservations. 1t is
considered likely that there will be a de-
man6 for the publication of some of
the confidential memoranda from the
files of the State Department, bear
ing on the treaty negotiation. These
are some of the moves in the game
which may be used to string out the
debate on the treaty in the hope that
a weary Senate finally will Hgree to an
adjournment until next i'au.
If the opposition is determined, how
ever so are the proponents of the
treaty. They do not believe that once
the Senate has assembled in special
session individual Senators will care
to be in the spotlight as deserting their
posts in Washington for the sake of
cooling breezes or even to 40 home to
rebuild their political fences. They be-
lieve that the sentiment of the coun-
try is overwhelmingly in favor of rati-
fication of the naval treaty and they
propose to put it through. A failure
to ratify the naval agreemen; would,
they insist, be dangerous blow at the
foreign relations of this country
Furthermore, the supporters of the
treaty insist that it marks a real step
forward in the cause of limitation and
reduction of ornaments and in the
cause of world peace.
Obviously, the opposition to the Lon
don treaty is taking satisfaction be-
cause of the delay in the completion
of the legislative work now before Con-
gress The longer the close of the
present session of Congress is put off.
the later in the Summer will be the
opening of the treaty session of the
Senate The suspicion has existed for
some time that some of the delay over
legislation in the present. session is
related to the opposition to the naval
treaty.