Because of one of the realities thus existing the temporary joint resolution was passed-and passed very hastily-here at the end of a session. Is it a wise thing for us at this particular time when conditions exist as they do in the world-and they may change at any moment-to endeavor to enact permanent legislation of this sort that changes completely a policy that this country has adopted in the past?

Secretary HULL. If I may again say so, it was not the intention to make any permanent change, unless future conditions should call for it, in the policy, for instance, in regard to the freedom of the seas, but only to allow Presidential discretion to withhold diplomatic protection when the Nation is about to be drawn into war. That is a term that is very euphonious, and one that we have made our slogan in a number of past wars. As a matter of fact, a very able gentleman came into the office the other day and said, "Now, we have abandoned all the freedom of the seas." I said, "In the first place, the laws that gave us rights to the freedom of the seas were largely ignored during the war. They are rather quiescent now. In the second place, all arms, ammunition, or implements of war are contraband per se, and under international law any of our nationals carrying them to belligerents did so at their own risk. They were subject to capture."

What is giving us great trouble is the fact that practically all war and other materials were made absolute contraband during the World War, as I have stated. In this bill we have gone back of that situation and have reserved all of our neutral rights as they existed prior to the World War with a view of undertaking to rehabilitate and revitalize them to a practical extent as soon as other nations will cooperate. In the meantime this is only discretionary, and when we made our announcement in the case of the present belligerents we said that we adopted the course we did for the purpose of dealing with that specific case. We were careful to make it temporary and to make it apply only to that specific case. This leaves it discretionary as to whether and when the so-called rule of freedom of the seas, as it relates to the protection of nationals, shall in any wise be waived merely by our Government.

The theory of that is that if we are going to be neutral and to carry out the neutrality policy which Congress set forth last August it is much more in the interest of the public service for the Government for the time being without affecting the validity of international lawwhich only the nations can do to withhold in advance its protection to our nationals who might go into war danger zones. We thought, and I still think, that our nationals should not go into danger zones and expect our Government to follow them with a battleship to protect them while they are selling a few dollars' worth of war materials, but that they should subordinate to a reasonable extent the privilege of demanding the protection of the Government to the far greater undertaking by the Government to promote the safety of the American people.

Senator JOHNSON. And would you feel that same way about other things than war material?

Secretary HULL. There has been some misapprehension, I think, about the real provisions of this bill. It does not interfere with our

nationals who desire to trade with belligerents except as to two classes of commodities. The first one is in section 3, comprising arms, ammunition, and implements of war. The second one is in section 4, which in effect says that war materials, including the materials out of which these embargoed arms, ammunition, and implements of war are made, shall, in the President's discretion, only be allowed to go to belligerents in the usual pre-war normal volume and not in abnormal quantities.

Senator LEWIS. Mr. Secretary, may I make bold at this moment to ask you if your Department has considered this phase of the matter: If, as you say things are and we will assume it must be so-we have a body of international law, so-called, up to a certain point-we recognized a part of it in the World War-why can we not there leave matters with the Executive to make regulations as things arise to meet the conditions, having each of those acted upon, sent over to the Senate for their approval or otherwise, in addition to the general body of the law, and leave the matter now so that we can meet these different emergencies as they come along rather than attempt to deal with the subject in a general law that may have no application to the things as they shall arise, with nothing existing that might meet the things as they shall arise?

Secretary HULL. Of course, in that connection the main point to be determined is whether the Congress deems it good policy to draw the line on belligerent nations everywhere and at all times on a normal volume of war materials, and notify them in advance that they may not receive abnormal quantities of essential war materials out of which overnight they may manufacture the very finished materials that everybody seems to agree should be restricted.

Senator LEWIS. Might not the following situation arise and I confess to you that this gives me a great deal of trouble; and, as most of the gentlemen around this table are intimate friends, I want to say to them that I have spent a good deal of time on the matter, having an interest in this subject that is well known, it being one to which in the last war I gave attention-is it not true that what we might wish to apply to countries such as Ethiopia and Italy is one thing; this conflict in South America that still goes on, another; and in_the_Orient, should war develop broadly and touch Russia, as I think I see it will, must it not be another? And will not a permanent act like this interfere with that flexibility of action which is necessary?

That, Mr. Secretary, is a matter which has worried me a good deal. Secretary HULL. I have not myself seen any good reason for a complete embargo, except as to the articles mentioned in section 3, either on free goods or on conditional contraband, or any restrictions on any articles except those mentioned in section 4. That enables this Nation to stand out before all the nations of the world as permitting normal trade at all times between this country and belligerents, but definitely drawing the line between this trade and what would be avowedly aid on the part of this country to belligerents to prosecute the war by furnishing abnormal quantities of war materials for war

purposes.

I think, myself-I may be entirely wrong-that that policy, if made known everywhere, and if practiced everywhere, would not be

open to valid objection. When we assure to every nation its normal trade we do not violate either the substance or the spirit of any peacetime trade agreements; if all the nations would notify warlike countries that if they went to war they would not get a nickle's worth of materials purely for the purpose of prosecuting the war above the normal trade volume

Senator JOHNSON. But, Mr. Secretary, has not that another aspect as well? I am not in any degree arguing with you the logic of what you say; but carrying out a policy of that sort means that you aid the strong and that you hurt the weak, does it not?

Secretary HULL. For instance, some person occasionally comes into the office and says, "You are helping a certain belligerent power because it has control of the sea." Does that answer your question? The belligerent in control of the sea is generally the strong power.

Senator ROBINSON. The difficulty that addresses itself to my mind with respect to continuing trade and maintaining it by law at a normal peacetime status grows out of practical considerations. Assuming that there would occur what always has occurred-stimulation of the disposition to trade incident to the war, caused by the demand and by the increased facilities for commerce-how would it be determined who should enjoy the trade? How would you limit the commerce to the normal? Assuming that there was opportunity for twice the normal commerce, what would be the practical method of imposing the limitation?

Senator BORAH. On the respective companies, you mean?
Senator ROBINSON. Yes; all through.

Senator BORAH. I mean you would not know how to apportion the trade among the different companies which might be engaged in the trade?

Senator ROBINSON. NO.

Senator BORAH. That is what I have been thinking about.
Secretary HULL. May I offer one observation?

Senator ROBINSON. Yes.

Secretary HULL. In the first place-I am sorry you were not here awhile ago, Senator Borah

Senator BORAH. Yes; I am sorry I was delayed.

Secretary HULL. But I stated awhile ago in one sentence that the whole rights of neutrals were largely ignored during the World War. Senator JOHNSON. Did our country concede that?

Senator BORAH. It did finally.

Senator JOHNSON. Exactly.

Secretary HULL. That is what is going on; and we might as well recognize that most of our neutral rights in the future are not going to be maintained simply on paper. Now, we might as well realize also that while we do not stand for extravagant navies, we must have enough force to command the respect of other nations when we hold up to them a threatened violation of our rights to trade as neutrals, so that they will regard and respect them. We can sit here and talk about our vast range of neutral rights and about the freedom of the seas, and yet the whole neutrality situation has been virtually dormant since the war and most nations are not seriously concerned about the matter.

Now, coming on down, you may recall that during the World War five neutral nations were practically rationed. Some of them were contiguous to the opposing belligerents, and I think one or two of them were not; but they were blockaded and shut off from neutral trade.

That is the way these modern wars will run.

Senator BORAH. That is the way wars have always been run.
Senator JOHNSON. Of course.

Secretary HULL. They run all the more efficiently, however, with the aircraft, and the submarines, and all these modern things.

Senator JOHNSON. Even with the rationing that you suggest, when the strong are in control of the sea they will not permit even that, will they? Is not that your experience of the past?

Secretary HULL. Yes; and that is why, Senator Johnson, looking back over the past, we find that most of our dangers have arisen in connection with our efforts to trade more or less directly with neutrals and in traveling on belligerent vessels.

That is why, in dealing with this situation, we announced the policy that our nationals, in traveling on belligerent vessels, for example, would do so at their own risk.

Senator JOHNSON. That is all right; I am not in disagreement with you on that at all.

Secretary HULL. We are just as earnest in preserving every fragment of the freedom of the seas as would be deemed at all feasible or advisable. I doubt the advisability of trying to preserve the former privilege of riding on belligerent vessels or under present conditions of going into these blockaded areas on the sea, where the sea is strewn with submarines and with floating mines, with aircraft overhead, and of binding the Government unconditionally to send our fleet after our nationals to protect them.

Senator JOHNSON. Nevertheless, this country insisted upon international law in respect to neutrality, did it not, up to the time we went into the Great War?

Secretary HULL. Yes.

Senator JOHNSON. Not only that, but subsequent to the war we presented our enemies with claims of our nationals because of the violation of neutrality and the violation of international law, and collected a considerable sum of money from them, did we not?

Secretary HULL. We received certain sums.

Assistant Secretary MOORE. Very little, compared to the great losses.

Senator JOHNSON. I quite agree with you that we got mighty little. I mention the fact to show, first, that this country has ever insisted upon international law and the rights of neutrals upon the sea; and secondly, that in war it is power, and it is guns and a navy on the sea that will control the situation. There is a great group of people in this country who want us to pass, willynilly, mandatory legislation that will set for all time our policy upon the sea, and in the same breath these same good people do not want us to have a navy or an army or any means of defense at all. That is one of the realities in the situation that is presented to us here, and what I have been trying to suggest to the Secretary is that here is a permanent policy; a very large seg

ment of the Congress wants to make that policy absolutely mandatory. Is it wise to do so? Or is it not better for us to rest upon the rights we have insisted upon from time immemorial and upon international law?

Secretary HULL. If I may, in answering the question, let it be supposed that our nationals should go into a dangerous war zone and get hurt. Our Government would be asked to back them up with force, if necessary.

Senator JOHNSON. Pardon me; I do not want to argue with you unduly, but I desire to get all the information I can in respect to this matter.

Your suppositious case I can understand; but if our people were there legitimately, with no connection with the war, who had nothing whatever to do with carrying war materials or otherwise or aiding either belligerent, and they are blown up, I do not know any reason why the United States Government should not stand behind them. I cannot quite fathom why.

Secretary HULL. If we had ordered the Navy over there, we would have been criticized in every community in this country.

Senator JOHNSON. And you would have been criticized, not because of a lack of righteousness in your cause, but because of an emotional spur that is abroad at the present time that is fantastic, under which we are asked to eliminate every principle for which we have contended in the past. That is the thing that is troubling me.

Secretary HULL. I am not arguing that question. We have striven to deal as fundamentally as possible with these conditions, and to serve notice on the world that we are preserving our neutral rights as they existed before the war, and planning to ask the nations, as I said before some of the Senators came in, to convene as soon as they will and reaffirm and revitalize the whole structure of international law as it relates to these neutral rights.

Senator JOHNSON. Mr. Secretary, are you not indulging in something of a paradox when you say you are going to preserve all of the rights that existed before 1914, and then insist that all of those rights were practically destroyed by the war, and that out of the war came chaos, chaos from the international law standpoint, and chaos from the standpoint of the policies we pursued in the past?

Secretary HULL. Then, when we look at the opposite course, we find chaos. What is the alternative?

Senator JOHNSON. Let us not be chaotic at all.
Secretary HULL. The alternative is force.

Senator JOHNSON. I am not speaking from the standpoint of the large Navy man but I was trying to speak from the standpoint of doing something that will be effective. How effective are we? We embargo arms, ammunition, and implements of warfare. We are going under this bill to embargo, by permanent legislation, everything that may be conceived of save food and medical supplies. I am right in that, am I not?

Secretary HULL. The authority to restrict the export of certain commodities is in this bill for the reason that so long as the Congress sees fit to perpetuate the embargo policy on the finished commodities there should be restrictions on the essential commodities out of which any belligerent nation in control of the seas could manufacture them