DANGER OF NAVAL RACE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 83, 2 January 1929, Page 9

DANGER OF NAVAL RACE

BETWEEN AMERICA AND BRITAIN WARNING BY SENATOR BORAH PEOPLE OF ALL NATIONS DESIRE PEACE Senator Borah expresses the opinion that a naval race is in- • evitable unless it can be avoided by a thorough understanding of neutrals’ rights at sea. The great body of people in all countries, he adds, wish their countries to be at peace. (United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright) (United Service.) --- Washington, December 29. “Instead of devoting attention to and concentration upon the building of warships, America and Britain might more profitably give some of their time to removing the conditions which seem to make warships necessary,” said Senator Borah in a special interview. As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and .the most powerful individual member of the Senate, Senator Borah spoke first of the almost universal desire of the people of all nations for peace. He regards the “lawless condition of the seas as at’ present the most disturbing factor in the peace programme,” and he sees the .“need for recodifying .and -re-establishing the, rules which should govern the rights of belligerents and neutrals at sea.” ■c:

He added that a naval race between America and Britain would be second only in its disastrous effect to another war. “Yet,” he said, “I venture the opinion that a naval race is inevitable, unless it can be avoided by a thorough understanding of neutrals’ rights at sea. The time and the situation demand that there sball .be a . minimum right to belligerents and a maximum right to neutrals. We still have, of course, speaking-now of peace generally, those . advocates of . heavy armaments, great armies and navies, who, in discussing these matters, have often used expressions not justified by facts, but the'fact remains that the great body •of people- in all countries- wish their countries to be at peace. - “The World War' was brought on* not by the people but by a few-lead-* ers. The people of none of these countries wanted to be at war with the people of other countries.. It seems to me we may take great comfort in the fact that this is the first holiday season in the whole history of mankind in which it could be said that practically all nations of. the world had agreed to reject war as an instrument for the settlement of . internatit/ial disputes and had entered a solemn pledge to settle all controversies, whatever the nature or kind,- through peaceful methods.”