BRITAIN’S REASON

Hokitika Guardian, 11 July 1935, Page 5

BRITAIN’S REASON

FOR NAVAL PACT GERMAN BUILDING UNDER WAY. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright;. LONDON, July 10. The "Daily Telegraph’s” diplomatic correspondent says: “It can now bo revealed that «lieu Herr Ribbentrop, Herr Hitler’s envoy arrived at Loudon to negotiate an Anglo-German naval agreement, lie intimated that the whole German navy programme (as cabled on Monday last), with the exception of a few .submarines bad already been put in band, and also intimated that Germany was determined in any event, to complete that programme. Britain was thus presented with a “fait accompli.’’ This, naval counterpart of Hei r Hitler s naval programme was, in fact, the military conscription, announced on March 16 last.

Herr Ribbentrop also intimated that the total tonnage of the German fleet might reach a much higher figure. Germany, however, was ready he said, to set a limit for her naval ambitions at a point, sixty-live per cent below the British Empire’s total naval strength, if Britain would openly admit that Germany was entitled to a fleet of these proportions. “Foreign conn tries,” adds the correspondent, “are blaming Britain for coming to terms so hastily with Germany. Germany may now take a different view of the position, because practical considerations, impelling the British decision, were based on major facts that already bad been accomplished.”