NAVAL LIMITATIONS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 13 July 1927, Page 5

NAVAL LIMITATIONS

A HOPEFUL SIGN. A POSSIBLE SOLUTION. OF CRUISER PROBLEM. BY CABLE— PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. LONDON, July 11. Semi-official information received in London leads official circles to refuse to consider that the Geneva Conference has reached a hopeless deadlock. They believe that the postponement of the plenary session will give experts the opportunity of making a new line of approach to the cruiser question which, it is possible, may take the form of an alternative to the tonnage basis, when fixing the ratio of the various navies. The Australian Press Association correspondent at Geneva says that the Hon. W. C. Bridgeman stated that exchanges of views on the new British thesis had led him to believe that the postponed plenary sitting might be held on Wednesday or Thursday. The thesis has not been previously fully considered, owing to an American suggestion that she wanted to be fiee to'build twenty-five of the Washington tvpe of cruisers. It was the lattei suggestion that almost caused a deadlock.

SIMPLE AND STRAIGHT FORWARD

BRITAIN’S NEW PROPOSITION

LONDON, July 1 L The First Lord of the Admiralty, the Hon. W. C. Bridgeman, said: M I do not believe it. is generally that 10,000 ton ships, armed with eight inch guns, are two and a half times more powerful than any cruiser afloat rimed with six-inch guns. The American proposition, a* the result of the so-called disarmament conference, is to increase the aggressive power of navies “The American propositi m is that we should first bind ourselves to a total tonnage, leaving the. United States to fill the elass with whatever size of cruisers she cares. It seems to me like asking Britain to close her eyes and open ”her mouth and take whatever America likes to give her. “Our new proposal is simple and straightforward. Each party to agree not to build more than a fixed number of various types of cruisers within a given period of years. The United States would be able to build up to our strength in the largest type of cruisers, using the remainder of the tonnage for whatever types may b? ticsired.

“We simply want to know what the other Powers are planning in order to cut our cloth accordingly. Britain is prepared to accept a total aggregate of 400,000 tons for cruisers and desroyers, provided the number of cruisers of 10,000 tons is( fixed for all the three Powers. ’ ’

Mr Bridgeman \s statement was made to the British Press exclusively, as a protest against the misrepresentation of the British case in a section of the American Press.