RETORT TO BRITAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 303, 22 December 1926, Page 7

RETORT TO BRITAIN.

! AMERICA AND CRUISERS. ARMAMENT RACE. STATES' BID FOR SUPREMACY. (Bj Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 10.80 a.m.) LONDON, December 21. President Coolidge does not believe it is necessary to commence immediately the construction of the ten new light cruisers authorised under the bill introduced into the House last Saturday by Mr. Butler, chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee. The naval correspondent of the "Daily News" says the strength of the American Navy cruiser unit will be practically doubled when the new cruisers, which are of a most powerful kind, are completed. Coming on top of the recent declaration of the President, Mr. Calvin Coolidge, that in no circumstances would he sanction competitive warship building, this development is most significant, adds the correspondent. It can only mean that the United States has decided that if the further growth of naval armaments cannot be cheeked by negotiation, the United States Navy shall be extended until it has reached the 5-5-3 ratio fixed by the Washington Treaty, not merely in battleships, but in every type of craft. The bill is undoubtedly a retort to the policy of the British Admiralty aiming at supremacy in cruisers.— (Sydney "Sun.") ■