AMERICA’S NAVY

Evening Star, Issue 19764, 14 January 1928, Page 5

AMERICA’S NAVY

THE BUILDING PROGRAMME COMPETITION WITH BRITAIN DENIED BY MR WILBUR. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright WASHINGTON, January 12. Mr C. D. Wilbur (Secretary to the Navy) emphatically denies the charges that the naval programme was designed to compete with Britain. Mr Butler (chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee) requested Mr Wilbur to return and toll just what a first-class navy was. Mr Butler, having criticised the navy as too large, was shocked by Mr Wilbur’s statement that it was not first class. Mr Wilbur stated; “We will allocate the expense of the programme at 163,000,000d0l a year, and must build new ships in, order to bring the navy up to the necessary strength.” * The proposed twenty-year building replacement programme, he said, would cost 3,360,000.000d01, and at the end of this twenty-year programme the navy should embark on another twenty-year programme to keep the navy up to the required strength, indicating that the basic expenditure would be 168,000,OOOdol annually for twenty years. He said the expenditures for the proposed five-year programme in reality would be spread over eight years, as follows;—55,200,000dol in 1929, 110,400.OOOdol in 1930, HI .100,OOOdol in 1931, 141,500,000d0l in 1932, 139,1)00.OOOdol in 1933, 93,000,G00d0l in 1934. 46.800,OOOdol in 1935, and 10,400,000d0l in 1936.

TRESS COMMENT. “ ONLY LEAD TO DISASTER.” NEW YORK, January 12. With a cartoon entitled “ Bin Navy Jingo,” and showing Undo Sam and John Bull carrying an overgrown individual dangling a sabre and beating a drum, the ‘New York World’ prints a lengthy leader warning the American Government concerning Mr Wilbur’s proposals. The paper says_: “It is idle, it is worse than idle, it is profoundly misleading, not to recognise fully that this programme challenges in unmistakable fashion the ancient prerogative of British sea power, and to challenge the British command of the seas is_ to touch the nerve centre of world affairs._ This is the most momentous question in the whole realm of statesmanship. The problem is fundamentally political, and to leave it to the admirals on both sides of the Atlantic can only lead to disaster.” The ‘New York Times’ says: “ It is to he regretted that the United States and Britain could not get together at Geneva. Competition in cruiser building looms ahead, despite the protestations of Mr Wilbur, but he is right when ho says that both President Coolidre and Congress are opposed to competitive building. There is reason to believe that Congress will not commit the country to an unrestricted building programme.”