NAVAL POLICY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 80, 14 January 1928, Page 5

NAVAL POLICY

AMERICA'S STRENGTH. CHALLENGE TO BRITAIN. NEW YORK PAPER'S CHARGE. (Per Press Association—Cop;-')ght.) NEW YORK, January 12. With a cartoon showing Uncle Sam and John Bull carrying an overgrown individual dangling a sabre and beating a drum, entitled "The Big-Navy Jingo," the "New York World" prints a lengthy leader warning the American Government concerning Mr Wilbur s proposals. . The paper says: "It is idle, it is worse than idle, it is profoundly misleading, not to recognise fully that this programme challenges in unmistakable fashion the ancient prerogatives of British sea power, and to challenge the British command of the seas is to touch the nerve centre of world affairs. This is the most momentous question in the whole .realm of statesmanship. The problem is funda-ment-ally political and to leave it to admirals on both sides of the Atlantic can only lead to disaster." The "New York Times" says U ['lt is to be regretted that the United States and Great Britain could not get together at Geneva. Competition in cruiser-building looms ahead in spite of the protestations of Mr Wilbur, but he is right when he says bolh Mr Coolidge and the Congress are opposed to competitive building. There is reason to believe the Congress will not commit the country to an unrestricted building programme."

THE COST OF BUILDING. 20-YEAR PROGRAMME URGED. NEW YORK, January 12. The proposed 20-year building replacement programme, said the Secretary for the Navy (Mr Wilbur) in his statement to the House of Representatives' Naval Affairs Committee), would cost 3.360,000,000 dollars, and at the end of the 20-year programme the Navy Department should embark on another 20-year programme to keep the navy up to the required strength. Indcating a basic expenditure of 168,000,000 dollars annually for 20 years, he said the expenditure for the proposed five-year programme in reality would be spread ever eight years, as follows: — Dollars. 1923 55,200,000 1930 .. ... 110,400,000 1931 ... 141,100,000 1932 '.'.. ... 141,500,000 1933 .. . . 139,000,000 1934 33,000,000 iflSfj ... 46,800,000 1936 .'.'• ... 10,400,000

Mr Vinson, a member of the House o - Representatives, during the hearing before the Committee, pointed out that the proposed five-year programme "is the largest int dollars ever submitted to Congress." , , Mr Wilbur replied "yes" to repeated questions as to whether he meant that the United States did not have a firstclass navy. . He indicated that the unit cost in his first year's estimate was, roughly:— Aeroplane carriers, nineteen million dollars. , . Light cruisers, seventeen million dollars Destroyer leaders and submarines five million dollars each. He declared emphatically that the proposed five-year programme was not for a "paper navy." The Naval Department he said, wanted the ships actually built. TIME LIMIT DESIRED. COMMITTEE AND PRESIDENT. (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) WASHINGTON, January 13. The House of Representatives Naval Affairs Committee criticised Mr Coolidge's failure to set a definite timelimit for the completion of the building programme. Members of the committee expressed the fear that such a failure would be liable to cause future conflict with the President. In the meantime, the Assistant-Sec-retary for the Navy (Mr Robinson) appeared before the committee and explained the discrepancy between Mr Wilbur's first estimate of a 3,360 million dollars programme, and the corrected figure of 2,280 millions which Mr Wilbur later issued. Mr Robinson revealed that the Naval General Board had first drafted a programme calling for the first figure. This programme, included battleships and additional destroyers, but was discarded because it was seen to be unnecessary to start battleship and destroyer replacements at the present time.