INADEQUACY STRESSED

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 147, 19 December 1933, Page 11

INADEQUACY STRESSED

ONE-SIDED CONCESSIONS

PACIFISTS BLAMED

Onlted Trcaa Association—By Electric Tel«» erapb— Copjrigut. (Received December 19, nooil.) LONDON, December IS. "The Navy can no longer guarantee the safety of food and oil supplies in. event of war, as the cruisers, available are pitifully inadequate in respect of numbers and strength," says the preface to "Jane's Fighting Ships." "The. programme is so limited and so onesided are the concessions which Britaiu .made at the London Conference that constructors are faced with the disagreeable necessity of providing ships inferior to their opposite numbers abroad.

"An Empire, unable to defend itself deserves it's, fate. The efforts of professional pacifists should no longer be tolerated. The desire of peace may be world-wide, but rapidly-growing, virile nations demand new markets and territory. The League has degenerated into a debating society, anxious but impotent. The preservation of peace in. the Pacific depends on other factor* than pacts and treaties."

The preface adds ' that America, Japan, France, and Italy are building regardless of cost. Italy claims the fastest cruiser, the Colleoni, of 40.9 knots, and destroyer, the Demosto,x>f 43 knots. Foreigners aro building thirty powerful cruisers, many of which ara armoured, four aircraft carriers, and whole'fleets of submarines and destroyers. Britain's only impending forniid* able ships are two cruisers.