Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1936. NAVIES IN THE PACIFIC.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 76, 11 January 1936, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1936. NAVIES IN THE PACIFIC.

A delicate position has arisen at the Naval Conference owing to Japan objecting to discussing the question of quantitive limitation of armaments until agreement on the subject of a common upper limit is reached. So acute has been the difference that already the question of continuing the conference in the event of withdrawal by Japan has been raised. The attitude of the Far Eastern Power has been a source of difficulty from the very beginning of the conference, the matter being one of great importance to New Zealand as affecting Britain's strength in the Pacific. The great problem is raised in regard to Japan's rooted objection to ratios and associated demand for equality with the British Empire and the United States, and it remains a problem even if the "common upper limit" be reduced.. That the Japanese attitude takes insufficient heed of the unequal strategic requirements of the naval Powers is obvious; all claims to parity fail in this fundamental way. It is in the Pacific ihat the most serious aspect of the question is met. This is due largely to the fact that Japan's status as a maritime Power is, for all practical purposes, bound up with the Pacific, another considerable factor being that the creation of an adequate fleet in that ocean is also the objective of the United States. In theory, the United States Navy has two divisions —an Atlantic fleet and a Pacific—but American naval strategy can afford to neglect the eastern • seaboard. No American interests of any moment lie across the Atlantic and no attack is now feared from that quarter. To Washington, Europe scarcely exists, and this presumption is basic in all the administrative activity of the United States' Navy Department, which for a long time has habitually looked westward instead. By way of Hawaii, Samoa, Guam and the Philippines, national interests stretch-right across the Pacific, and these interests are being steadily developed. Even the expressed intention to grant independence to the Philippines some day is qualified by emphatic reservations, particularly as to American naval rights. The Panama Canal was cut and is held by the United States primarily as a means of concentrating at will the Atlantic and Pacific units of the American Navy, and from time to time they manoeuvre under one command on the western seaboard. A study of the naval purposes of the three Powers strongest in the Pacific —and in the world, it must be added —reveals these purposes as primarily, almost solely, defensive. Japan is in this respect quite as theoretically inoffensive as Britain or the United States. Yet, should the League or any other concert of the Powers fail to induce an amicable settlement of the Sino-Jap-anese dispute, war in the East might quickly involve one or both of the English-speaking nations. To be unprepared for this risk would be wrong. If anything should interfere with Japan's hold on Formosa, on which she is dependent for large supplies of rice, coal and copper, and a quantity of oil, this would be bitterly resented;- so too would be any hampering of her communications with the north-equatorial islands she holds under mandate. I nus the discussions in London are conducted in an atmosphere charged with local requirements rather than broad principles. Hence the continuing difficulty of reaching an agreement. As tar as Britain is concerned, her naval strength cannot with safety be massed m the Pacific; risks and duties demand much service elsewhere. A Japanese-Ameri-can-British naval equality is therefore a fictitious equality when the Pacihc comes into consideration. I his is the fact that must be pressed whenever parity is discussed, whatever the consequences inintern^Uc^aTparleys.