NAVAL AGREEMENTS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 196, 20 July 1937, Page 9

NAVAL AGREEMENTS.

QUALITATIVE LIMITATION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 18. It is taken for granted that all outstanding formalities concerning the bilateral naval treaties with Germany and Russia which were signed yesterday will soon be completed and that bv July 31 the London Naval Treaty a.nd the bilateral treaties will come into force. ' These two bilateral treaties deal with qualitative arms limitation and the exchange of information and are based on the provisions of the 1936 treaty, certain deviations having been made from the provisions of that instrument to meet the special requirements of Russia and Germany. The British Government negotiated them simultaneously and their conclusion is interdependent. as Germany’s willingness to sign 6uch an agreement, was subject to the signature of a similar Anglo-Soviet qualitative treaty. Since the Japanese have refused to accept a fourteen-inch pun calibre limitation for future caoitnl ships, the relevant article in the London Naval Treaty is no longer required and does not appear in either of the bilateral agreements. 1 MORE TREATIES PLANNED. (British Official Wireless.) Received July 20. 11.55 a.m. RUGBY, July 19. There is favourable British and German Press comment on the bilateral naval agreements signed at the week-end between Britain and Germany and Britain and Russia, and it is expected fhat these will be followed by similar agreements with the Powers having smaller navies. Negotiations have already begun with the Scandinavian countries, Poland, and Turkey, and later bilateral treaties on similar lines will be negotiated by Britain with the other Powers.