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REVIEWS AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY* FRANK H-. UNDERHILL While' their quadrennial election campaign works up to its climax the American people are being presented with a series of commitments in foreign policy on which ,the new executive and legislative authorities will have' to pass judgment. They have already agreed to UNRRA, and the international machinery for the relief and rehabilitation of countries ravaged by the war is beginning to operate. At Bretton Woods a provisional agreem ~nt was made on the establishment of an international agency 'for stabilizing currencies _ and providing financial assistance to countries under'strain in the post-war world; the essence of this agreement is that funds provided by the United States may be used by an international authority which the United States does not control, and over this there is likely to be a sharp controversy in Congress. At Dumbarton Oaks, at the moment of writing) the Big Three are constructing the framework of an international security organization to take the place of the old League of Nations; and in this field also the d)fficult question looms up as to how far the American Congress, will allow American armed forces to be used to restrain aggression without specific authorization in each case from Congress itself. In Europe decisions are being made almost every day by American authorities on the spot as to the form of the ,regime that shall be set up in one liberated area after another, as to the proportions in which Left and Right are to be mixed in the new European governments; and these decisions are causing criticism both in Europe and America. In many other fields also the American Government is fixing the shape of the post-war world; it makes an agreement with Britain about the regulation of world oil resources; its veto limits the new international authority on civil aviation to purely technical functions. And SO one could go on. Yet on most of these issues there seems to be very little being said by the main spokesmen on either side in the election campaign. To an outsider it would appear that events have decided beyond question that the United States will not return to a negative policy of isolation after this war. But there is no real agreement among the American people as to the positive part they will play; and, however the election goes, its result will not denote any clear-cut decision. As the London Economist put it some months ago, *The Timejor Decision. By SUMNER WELLES. New York: Harper and Brothers [Tor'onto: Musson Book Company). Pri. vii, 431. ($4.00) U.S. Post War Aims. By WALTER LIPPMANN. Boston: Little, Brown and Company [Toronto: McClelland and Stewart]. 1944. Pp. xii, 235. ($2.00) The Great Decision. By JAMES T. SHOTWELL. New York [Toronto]: Macmillan Company. 1944. Pp. x, 268. ($'3:50) The Road 10 Foreign Polic)'. -By HUGH GIBSON. New York: Doubleday, Doran. 1944. Pp. x, 252., ($2.50) 101 102 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY , the election is only the second reading of a bill that will then enter upon an 'indefinite committee stage, and no one can be very sure what" the bill will look like when it emerges from committee. The Americans, as citizens of a great state, have one advantage over us Canadians, in that they are presented with abundance of material, in the form of newspaper editorials, articles in periodicals, and books, to guide them in making up their minds. Here are four recent books, each one written by an acknowledged expert on the subject of foreign policy. Sumner Welles was until recently the Under-Secretary of State in Washington. \i\lalter Lippmann as a young man served on the peace delegation that went to Paris with President Wilson, and in recent years he has been perhaps the most influential columnist in American journalism. The Welles and Lippmann books have been best-sellers during recent weeks in the United States. In the ,New York Times list of current best-sellers .for September 3, the Welles book ranked no. 2 in the non-fiction group and the Lippmann book - no. 5; and the significance of this wide sale which...

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