NAVAL PARITY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 79, 2 March 1929, Page 9

NAVAL PARITY

AMERICA’S DEMAND. ATTITUDE TO NEXT EUROPEAN k WAR. V CORRESPONDENT EXPLAINS. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). (Australian Press Association.) Received March 2, 8.55 a.m. LONDON, March 1. Mr Frank Simmonds, the foreign editor of the American Review of Reviews, states in a letter to the National Review: — “An explanation of America’s demand for naval parity is that Americans in the mass do not believe that they have any responsibility for maintaining peace in Europe. They have further resolved that next time Europe goes to war a British naval Power shall not make the United States a co-belligerent with Britain. “American politicians are wellnigh unanimous that British eea power in 1812, TB6l and in 1914 and 1915 exercised a powerful, and even a controlling influence, to the detriment of American interests. They calculate that if our fleet is equal to the British any British Government will be compelled to refrain from interfering with what Americans regard as their rights. Thus, while the American Fleet is not being built against a Britain in peace, it is very deliberately being built against Britain at war. The fleet is being built for the express purpose of abolishing the traditional British blockade. “It is a matter of supreme indifference to the Americans whether the next European war is clothed with the moral authority of the League of Nations. We should see that the League decisions are procured by the superior diplomatic skill of nations. It is equally a mistake" for Englishmen to think of the United States as an enemy or friend. Rather, she should be regarded as a Power with a policy dictated by certain unmistakeable material and psychological factors.