A Hoover Win.

Notwithstanding many predictions to the contrary by well informed observers, the United States Senate passed the London Naval Treaty by a heavy majority—58 votes to 9. Prior to that the Senate had rejected, by heavy majorities, various hostile reservations, but it adopted a reservation “stipulating that no approval be given by ratification to any secret agreement or understanding that may exist in relation to the Pact.” Thus the Republican breakaway led by Senator Johnson (California) seems to have come to nothing. When Woodrow Wilson, a decade ago, brought back from Versailles the League of Nations and the guarantee of France's integrity, the Senate threw them into the waste paper basket and not long ago it was predicted that Secretary of State Stimson would have a similar experience with the London Naval Treaty. These anticipations of woe, of course, enhance the moral victory that the Hoover Administration has won in the Senate's final vote. From that success President Hoover gains moral help in his fight for unemployment relief; he also gains material help, for the money saved from naval shipbuilding will give him a more free hand in his economic programme. Naval parity attainable with a lesser expenditure on warships opens the way to a heavier subsidising of the United States mercantile marine. In either case, this American money has for its objective supremacy at sea. The onus is on British shipping to counter subsidies with efficiency.