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Show monetary units. There Is a very excellent working arrangement right now so far as dollar, pound and franc are concerned in the tripartite tri-partite agreement But that Is Just a gentlemen's agreement. It Is not only unsanctioned so far the parliamentary bodies of Britain, France and the United States are concerned, but it is susceptible of being cancelled on a few hours notice no-tice at any time. Mr. Roosevelt has been thinking seriously of such an international conference for a long time. It will be recalled that he sent up a trial balloon last summer, during the campaign, through the New York Times. It was never officially confirmed con-firmed but no State department official or diplomat in Washington has ever doubted that it was inspired in-spired direct from the White House. Wait on Spanish War At the moment the situation is waiting on the Spanish war. Present inquiries are as to whether the governments gov-ernments concerned will agree to such a conference when and II tne Spanish conflagration stops shooting sparks all around the various European Eu-ropean powder dumps. It is likely to come very soon, now, for though there is not much sign of peace in Spain there is a growing belief that the danger involved in-volved of its spreading to other nations na-tions is growing appreciably less with every passing day. Certain dangerous figures have learned that troops and weapons they thought irresistible are not truly so. The same figures have learned that their possible enemies In a war are more Cngerous than they had thought. Nor does this apply solely to either side. It applies to both. All of which has put certain European governments govern-ments in a much more receptive mood to a peace plan than they were when Mr. Roosevelt sent up his trial balloon last summer. Actually, also, there is very real need In the opinion of the Roosevelt Roose-velt administration, and also in the view of several European governments, govern-ments, for currency stabilization. The New Deal is concerned about runaway price rises. It would like very much to accomplish just the opposite of what it was trying to do in 1933 and 1934. It would like to make the dollar more valuable instead in-stead of less. As evidence of this, it has even considered marking down slightly the price of gold in dollars. Treasury department opposition op-position has prevented this. Eggs for Russia There would seem to be quite an opening for chicken farms in Russia, Rus-sia, particularly in the vicinity of Moscow. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies has discovered that the egg supply of every foreign embassy and legation in the capital of the U. S. S. R. is supplied by diplomatic couriers, who bring the eggs 800 miles from Warsaw, Poland. This doesn't look so far on the map, but it is only 787 miles from Washing, ton to Chicago, only 733 miles from Chicago to Atlanta, and only 840 miles from Indianapolis to Charleston, Charles-ton, South Carolina! It might be borne in mind, in assimilating as-similating this rather curious to American farmers lack of egg production in the vicinity of Moscow, Mos-cow, that transportation facilities in the United States, both railroads and highways, are immeasurably superior to those in Russia, so that actually the difficulty and time involved in-volved in transporting those eggs is much greater than for comparable distances in the United States. And this entirely aside from the fact that the eggs cannot be shipped in ordinary fashion, but must be carried car-ried across the frontier, from about the center of Poland to about the center of European Russia, by a diplomat courier exempt for examination, ex-amination, from hold-up and from tariff duties. Incidentally the American embassy embas-sy is the only one in the Russian capital that is not supplied with certain luxuries, and, from the American standpoint necessities, b; couriers. Young attaches at the United States embassy keep writing their friends and relatives to send them every sort of thing, from canned tomatoes to tooth paste, from insect powder to cold cream, which, for various reasons probably entirely in keeping with the scheme of things in Russia, are not easily obtainable by purchase there, and virtually unthinkable, therefore, for the ordinary inhabitant Russia No Rival All of which, being discussed at a recent Washington dinner where most of the guests were State department de-partment officials and their wives, with a slight sprinkling from Capitol Hill, brought forth the declaration of one senator, who had visited Russia, Rus-sia, that he thought the idea that Russia would be a competitor of the United States within a few years ridiculous. He made the statement after considerable con-siderable wonder was expressed that the Russian peasants, living in such poverty, did not seize upon such an obvious market for eggs as the various embassies and legations lega-tions of Moscow. True, the market would be small, comparatively, but it would be enough for quite a few farmers with farms close to the Soviet capital to do very well Indeed. In-deed. "It wouldn't occur to the Russian farmers that any one would want really fresh eggs," broke in another senator. "Several of us were over there a few years back. We had plenty of food, but we noticed they like eggs just a bit 'high.' We couldn't eat them." C Bell Syndicate. WNU Service. and HEARD 6r6und tlie NATIONAL jCAPITAI Carter Field Washington. High army and navy officials are completely muzzled muz-zled on the neutrality issue as far as any -public utterance is concerned, con-cerned, and one may be sure that, remembering the experience of Gen. Johnson Hagood, none of them are going to prove embarrassing to the administration even if summoned sum-moned before congressional committees, com-mittees, but they think nothing of it. This writer has asked any number num-ber of high ranking army and navy officers the very simple question: "Is the senate cash and carry neutrality neu-trality plan, or the house plan giving giv-ing the President wider discretion, more likely to keep this nation out of a World war?" Similarity of the answers would almost convince a listener that there had been a solemn military conclave, at which a formal doctrine doc-trine with respect to this subject had been approved. For the answer almost invariably runs something like this: "Neither plan will keep this country coun-try out of war. Both plans are vicious In many respects. The senate sen-ate plan forces every far-sighted foreign nation to plan to get its war supplies from some other nation, na-tion, unless it is sure it has plenty of shipping to fetch them from this country, and even then there is the incentive to build up supplies elsewhere. else-where. This of course tends to destroy de-stroy our export trade, and creates an additional artificial encouragement encourage-ment to other nations to build up their own merchant marines, as j they know they cannot make use of ' ships flying the American flag. "The house plan is highly dangerous danger-ous because it grants the President virtually power to discriminate between be-tween belligerents. To discriminate, of course, is to take sides, and right away this country is, to that limited extent on one side or the other. No Sure Way to Peace "There is no sure way of maintaining main-taining peace, and never will be in this world. The nearest approach to it is a very adequate army and navy, Jhe larger and more dangerous dan-gerous uany possible antagonist the better. No nation is running around picking quarrels with a nation na-tion whose army and navy It understands under-stands to be definitely superior to its own. "Any other precaution is Just practical and, if it works at all, is far more likely to work toward getting the United States into war then keeping it out." Incidentally, of course, most army and navy men do not like the idea of discouraging munitions exports, even. They like the British system of encouraging munitions manufacturers, with the thought that when war does come the country coun-try gets off to a flying start, as contrasted con-trasted with the terrific lag inevitable inevita-ble if there is. only government govern-ment manufacture of munitions. They insist that the government will never spend enough money, in peace time, to have the facilities ready to turn out sufficient supplies when war comes. Only the incentive of private profit, they assert provides that sort of capacity. Moreover, they do not like to see the munition-making business transferred to some other country, possibly one which some day will be at war with the United States. Senator Bennett C. Clark of Missouri Mis-souri has not had much success so far in working out his solution for this problem. He would have the government manufacture or buy and keep in stock sufficient jigs and dies and tools so that on the outbreak out-break of war all sorts of factories and machine shops could be transformed trans-formed into armament plants. Peace Conference Diplomatic denials are always to be taken with a grain, in fact a pinch, of salt This goes for the recent denial of Secretary of State Cordell Hull with respect to better prospects of a peace conference. Of course all that Mr. Hull denied was that this was the errand of Norman H. Davis in London, and in this he was, at least technically, correct. Regardless of any statements made hitherto or to be made in the future, however, President Roosevelt Roose-velt is thinking a great deal about an international conference. He has been for a long time. No one in the diplomatic corps here is going to embarrass Mr. Hull or the President Presi-dent by rushing into print about it no matter what the President and his Secretary of State may say, but virtually every important embassy em-bassy and legation in Washington knows all about the highly unofficial unoffi-cial inquiries that the President has caused to be made with respect to an international conference, which will have two major objectives. objec-tives. One of these is the maintenance of peace. The second is some more permanent and dependable stabilization stabiliz-ation of the dollar with the pound and the franc and other national |