NAVAL POWER.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19220, 28 January 1928, Page 15

NAVAL POWER.

BRITAIN'S POSITION. SIR ROBERT HORNE'S STATEMENT. (BY CABLB—PBISS ASSOCIATION— COr-TRIGHT.) (AUSrBALIAN AND S.Z CABLB ASSOCIATION.) MELBOURNE, January 27. Sir Robert Home, referring to naval armaments at the Overseas Club, said that last year, in the.United States, the idea was very prevalent that, because Britain failed to come to an agreement with that nation on the question of the number of cruisers to be built, Britain had some ulterior design, and still cherished and desired to have a navy larger than that of any other nation.

The controversy between Britain and the United States was over the number of cruisers each should have. America wanted a certain number of 10,000 ton cruisers, and wished to limit the number of cruisers which Britain required Britain could not nccept their figure, and insisted 'that she required a much greater number of cruisers than had been stipulated. Britain had no aggressive intention at all. All he asked was that she should have the number of cruisers she required in accordance with the distance between the sections of the Empire.

He added: "America is self-contain-ed, and has only one or two near possessions, so she requires lewer ships than Britain, whose possessions s»q scattered all through the seas. Further, America requires the large cruiser because it has to steam a greater distance to refuel, whereas the Empire possesses a laige number of fuelling stations throughout the world. Her cruisers could operate with a much smaller store of fuel, hut we require far more of them than America does. We should have been failing in our duty to those portions of the Empire here and overseas if we had failed to maintain the position that nothing less than our absolute necessities should be agreed to Britain is bound to recognise her own necessities, and the needs of the great communities which depend on the defence she affords, and we did nothing less than our duty in maintaining that position."

WAR TALK DEPRECATED. (AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION) WASHINGTON, January %. Representative J. V. McClintic (Democrat, Oklahoma), addressing the House, described Admiral C. 1\ Plunkett's alleged war talk as an "idiotic, asinine outburst." He declared that the Admiral's prophecy of war with Great Britain had the effect of curtailing and destroying trade relations instead of increasing commerce with friendly nations.

[Admiral Plunkett, in the course of a speech supporting the American proposed naval building programme, said the penalty for efficiency was war. "It is inevitable," he said, "so long as we travel along the lines we aro travelling to-day, and what of it?" He added that if his eye read history correctly the country was nearer wat than ever before because its commercial competition to-day placed it in competition with other great commercial nations. J

U.S. NAVAL AIR FORCE. (AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLB ASSOCIATION.) WASHINGTON, January 26. Rear-Admiral Moffett, Chief of the Navy Aeronautic Bureau, told the House Naval Committee that 759 new aeroplanes will be needed to man the five aircraft-carriers. Twenty-sis new cruisers were provided for in the building programme, these being additional to the 1000 'planes provided for in the five-year aviation programme which was now being carried out. Rear-Admiral Moffatt stated that each carrier needed seventy-five 'planes for active service and about half that in reserve, while each cruiser needed six. He asserted that each 'plane would carry a bomb capable of demolishing a cruiser.