NAVAL DISPUTE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 147, 19 December 1933, Page 13

NAVAL DISPUTE

BETWEEN BRITAIN AND U.S.

OVER SIZE OF CRUISERS

The seeds for a naval iirmamonts dispute which "will need statesmanship to uproot have been sown in the BritishAmerican exchange over six-inch gun, 10,000-ton cruisers, culminating in a strong U.S. State Department refusal to halt the building programme :(says the "Christian Science Monitor").

Tho American public works-naval replacement . schedule included four cruisers—the- Nashville, Savannah, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia—which constitute an entirely new and unknown category of fighting craft. Whilo the London Naval Treaty strictly limits <10,000-to:n cruisers carrying eight-inch guns it permits Powers to dispose of their six-inch cruiser tonnage as they | see fit. ■ - :■:■'■

Hitherto, all naval Powers have built craft averaging around 7500 tons. But the American Navy Department does not regard this size as adequate,' and having been forced diplomatically—and reluctantly—-to give up its demand for inoro 10,000-tonners in tho eight-inch gun category, the Department hit upon tho ingenious project of making six-inch gun vessels of the larger type.

Thereupon the British Government, fearing this building would require similar construction at least in British and Japanese shipyards,, made its request that tho programme be held up pending further study. To this tho Stato Department announced:

"In reply to suggestions from, the British Government that the laying down of any six-inch gun cruiser larger than those now in existence might be deferred during the life of tho Disarmament Conference, or at least pending further discussions of the qualitative limitation of future ships, the American Government has replied that it did not see its way clear to alter its delayed naval construction programme, or to suspend tho laying do-wa of any projected ships."

Tlio dispute springs solely • from traditional Anglo-American differences of naval requirement. While Britain, with many naval bases scattered over the Seven Seas, can. get along strategically with smaller craft, the United States asks for vessels of a much .wider cruising radius, and heneo larger size. The British Government has consistently anil unsuccessfully., sought to reduce the agreed size of all ships, from dreadnoughts of 33,000 tons down to small cruisers. Its pre-eminent demand is for small ships—plenty of them —>while the United States needs less but bigger craft. . . ■ . '

If tho present clash leads to naval l-ivah-y in. tho now category, friends of armament limitation everywhere will rogret tho. development. But tho United States was: acting within its Treaty rights as well as in accordance •with policy.