NAVAL PROGRAMMES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 70, 20 September 1927, Page 9

NAVAL PROGRAMMES

DRAMATIC STATEMENT

NO ARMAMENT RACE

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, 22nd August. The profound effect of the failure of the Geneva: Naval Disarmament Conference found a somewhat startling «cho in the address of the Vice-President of the United States,/ Mr.. Charles Dawes, at the ceremony of edication of the Peace Bridge across the Niagara Eiver, at which the Prince of Wales and his "brother, Prince George, assisted. The-, reaction was so strong that the Vice-President could not resist departing 'from usual diplomatic practice at such / functions, and addressing himself directly to the conference issues. His address is the.more remarkable, as he was • representing President Coolidge, who summoned the conference. No doubt he consulted the President before he made hia address, and the natipii has generally accepted the sentiments ha expressed as being directly those.of the President.

Uttered in a most dramatic setting on the platform draped with the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes, and the Canadian flag, Mr. Dawes's sentiments found an unlooked-for climax to the ceremonies. He plunged into the subject of Geneva straight aw-y, and his speech left no doubt as to the widespread effect of the failure of the conference on the body politic. His most striking utterance placed America's hopes and aspirations, both at tho conference and after it, in bold reKef:—

If, in their respective programmes, under the principle of equality, the United States requires heavy cruisers xhich Great Britain does not need, and Great Britain requires light cruisers wnich the United States does not need, there is no excuse for inaugurating a competition under which ships will be built which neither of

them need.

That may .be taken as the last word of the. United States oa the ißsue. It is accepted as America's assurancethat .competition with Britain is out of the question, as it has given the assurance _ that America accepts Britain's docfeine that an armament race with her traditional friend is out of the question.. The Vice-President's speech, on a subject and at an occasion worthy of it, lias set the nation entirely at rest,' and silenced all fears regarding the imp asse at Geneva.