The President's Week

Last week the President, in absentia: >Submitted to Congress for its information an agreement, a protocol and an exchange of notes signed in London by plenipotentiaries of the U. S. and Great Britain. The agreement formalized the lease to the U. S. of sites for naval and air bases in Newfoundland (six pieces of land, one of them 2,610 acres); Bermuda (five parcels of land, totaling 545 acres); Jamaica (six areas of land and water, totaling 55 sq. mi. and 275 acres); St. Lucia (more than 1,255 acres); Antigua (1.4 sq. mi. and 430 acres); Trinidad (one area of 18 sq. mi., one of 12, one of 2 and one of 96 acres); British Guiana (one area of 2 1/2 sq. mi. and one of 1.400 acres).

The protocol specified protection of Canadian defense interests in Newfoundland; the exchange of notes* provided for the time when Newfoundland, temporarily under British administration to reorganize its finances, will again become -L- Dominion.

The agreement specified no customs duties or taxes on U. S. citizens employed at the bases; permitted British fishing privileges.

> By proclamation, designated Sunday, May 18, as "I Am An American Day."

* Four Americans, including Ambassador to the Court of St. James's John G. Winant, signed the exchanges. Biggest problem: finding four fountain pens to present to the Americans. Most fountain-pen factories have been converted to defense production. After much telephoning and shop-combing, four pens were purchased, engraved with the signatories' names.

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