News of the Week MR. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT has begun his
-13-1- Presidency with an amazing ten days. It would be some exaggeration to say that he solved the blinking crisis by the steps he took and persuaded Congress to take in the first forty-eight hours, but at least he stayed the panic and sent people hurrying to the banks everywhere to pay- money in, instead of drawing it out. He got the- Budget ' relieved to the extent of not much less than £100,000,000 a year by cuts not merely in civil servants' salaries .; but in the sacred veterans' bonuses, to touch Which is normally ' sufficient to precipitate a political Crisis. on. the spot. - And, "what may be of the first importarice to the World outside America, he has announced • that he will ask Congress (which is in no mood at the- moment to refuse him anything) for Power to impose an embargo on the export of arms as and-when he may think fit. In addition he has sent an American representative to join the League Assembly's Committee of Twenty-one on the Manchurian dispute, and it is understood that conversations between Mr. Cordell Hull and the British Ambassador on the- debt question are about to begin. In that connexion there is' more reason than ever for the avoidance of indiscreet talk —most of all of any we-won't-pay attitude—on this side of the Atlantic. It will take all the President's immense influence to get a decent debt settlement through Congress, and silence here will do more to make his task easy than even the most diplomatic form of speech.
