RIGHTS NOT ABUSED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 34, 10 February 1939, Page 10

RIGHTS NOT ABUSED

BUILDING UP TO TREATY

LIMITATION

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, February 8. The German decisions tq. mount eight-inch guns on the new 10,000-ton cruiser Seydlitz and to resume her freedom to construct submarine tonnage up to the British total was the ! subject of seven questions on the j Order Paper in the House of Commons today. They were answered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, Mr. G. H. Shakespeare, who made it clear that the German decisions were in accordance with the rights | conferred upon her in the naval agreements of 1935 and 1937. The German Government's standpoint in reaching these decisions, Mr. Shakespeare said, had been stated to be that, in the present condition of international affairs, Germany was no longer prepared to refrain from developing her naval forces to the full extent permitted by the Anglo-Ger-man treaty. NOT REGARDED AS THREAT. He mentioned that the increase in German tonnage did not affect the overriding condition in the treaty that the total German tonnage should not exceed 35 per cent, of the aggregate of the British Commonwealth. The Minister added that the Board of the Admiralty could not agree that the exercise by any Power of the right con-1 ferred upon it by a treaty could be regarded as constituting a threat to Britain or any other Power. He remarked, however, that, in drawing up the 1939 programme of new naval construction, Britain had given full weight to all factors in naval developments in all parts of the world, and he invited the House to await the Navy Estimates to see what that programme would contain.