UNITED STATES NAVY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 89, 13 January 1928, Page 9

UNITED STATES NAVY

MR.' WILBUR’S BUILDING RECOMMENDATIONS )RAFTEI) AS FIVE-YEAR PROGRAMME ; “IN NO SENSE COMPETITIVE” The Secretary of the United States Navy says the building programme which he has recommended to Congress was drafted as a five-year programme for the imme- ' diate needs of the navy and was only regarded as a starter. He emphasised that it meant no competitive building, and was not proposed to meet the building programmes of other , nations. .

fey Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.

Washington, January 11. Mr. Curtis D. Wilbur, Secretary of the Navy, before the House of Repre-. sentatives Naval Affairs Committee, revealed that the 800-milhon dollar building programme, winch he recommended to Congress, was drafted as a fiveyear programme for the immediate needs of the navy. It was to be regarded only as a starter. .He recommended an additional twenty-year pro- . gramme of building and replacement, which should provide forty.-three 10,000tou cruisers and additional submarines and destroyers. . ' ' ■ ' THE EQUALITY RATIO. Mr. Wilbur emphasised that the fiveyear programme meant no competitive building, that it was not proposed to meet the building programme, of other nations. The • Secretary explained that Uns; However, would bring the United States navy , well within, the■ equality ratio fixed by the Washington Conference, as copared with the navy of Great Britain, “slightly above the 5-3 ratio with Japan.” Mr. Wilbur cited the insistence .of Great Britain at Geneva for her need of increased tonnage, regardless of that of other Powers, as persuasive evidence i that the United States needed increased cruiser tonnage and also that such a programme for the United States was in no sense competitive. To this Presi-

dent Coolidge was .said to.be opposed. The Secretary said that the programme was simply based on the needs of the United States Navy as determined by the Naval Technical Board. ACTUAL PROTECTIVE NEEDS. Mr. Wilbur stated that it would cost the United States a thousand million dollars to build the tonnage- of cruisers to the limit set by Britain.- He said that the ships built under the twentyyear programme would represent a conservative estimate of- actual protective needs. To build enough would be too great a burden on the nation’s peacetime activities. He said that if’ the twenty-year programme were catried out and continued with a reasonable burden placed on the Government the danger of war would be greatly minimised. The United States, he said, have, needed.a “first-class navy.”’ The naval building programme was based on the navy’s needs in the same sense that the city ’s police” force was based upon the estimate of its needs for the pro- ’ tection of the public. A report accompanying Mr. Wilbur’s statement to the Committee said: “Smart-looking modern cruisers create a prestige that aids merchants and manufacturers in building up trade abroad, and the measure of commercial success is influenced in no small degree by the prestige which up-to-date, smart-looking cruisers create and foster.” ....