THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1936 COMPETITIVE NAVAL POLICIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22515, 4 September 1936, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1936 COMPETITIVE NAVAL POLICIES

In the middle of July the American and Japanese Ambassadors in London were handed Notes in which the British Government declared its intention of retaining, after December 31 next, 40,000 tons of over-age destroyer tonnage above the figure allowed by the London Treaty. Now the United States Government informs Britain that, "very reluctantly," it must do exactly the same; and the Japanese Government follows with a notification that it will be obliged to retain surplus destroyers and submarines to an extent corresponding to the British excess in destroyer tonnage. This series of announcements does not conflict with the treaty; it arises directly from the famous Clause 21 that was described at the time of the treaty (1930) as a "safeguarding" or "escape" clause, and is now generally known by the term " escalator." The London Treaty, it should be remembered, was negotiated with difficulty. It effected no real reduction in navies; on the contrary, it sanctioned certain increases, and its service to limitation was offset by this clause, added as an afterthought when France and Italy, unable to settle their differences, stood out. Mainly because of the virtual certainty that ' their rivalry in the Mediterranean would create a position inimical to British naval security there, the three signatories Britain, the United States and Japan devised this clause. It provided that, should the requirements of the national security of any of the contracting parties be materially affected (in the opinion of that party) by new construction on the part of any non-contracting Power, the party so affected would be entitled to build beyond the treaty limits—on notification to the other two, this notification to specify the intended increases and the reasons for them. The other two would then become " entitled to make a proportionate increase." Strictly within the provisions of the treaty, this situation has occurred. Britain, because of considerable increases in the navies of non-contracting Powers —these increases include the laying down or projecting in Europe of more than 70 submarines —and because of emergency measures necessary in the Mediterranean, has felt compelled to take advantage of the "escalator" clause by retaining destroyers otherwise legally due to be scrapped. It is in destroyers that Britain has been most severely threatened with inadequacy. Circumstances arising from the.fact that the bulk of the Empire's destroyer fleet was built and delivered in the period 1917-19 have made the years 1933-35 a period of particularly rapid wastage; only 27 destroyers have been due to replace 117 completing their prescribed term of service; and the potential submarine menace dictated the retention of destroyer tonnage beyond the 150,000 tons named in the treaty. As the Disarmament Conference was abortive and the Naval Conference of this year discarded altogether the principle of quantitative limitation, there was no recourse save to the "escalator" j clause. Britain's action has ample warrant in naval fact and international agreement, for the explicit condition upon which the obligation to limit British destroyer strength was undertaken has never become effective. What of the American and Japanese intentions 1 They are ostensibly based upon the British decision and are within the prescriptions of the London Treaty, yet few can doubt that the real reasons have to do with Japanese policy in relation to continental Asia, especially antiSoviet plans, and with the antagonism of Japan and the United States.

Thus a problem centred at first in the Mediterranean has stretched across the world to the Pacific, and a provision legitimately introduced as a safeguard has become an instrument of disquiet. If the United States should treat' the Japanese notification as an independent, additional invoking of the emergency clause, this ocean may become the scene of an accelerated race in naval construction ; there will be little regard for the reasons compelling British action and a dangerous care for antagonistic interests aloof from Europe yet with difficulty kept apart from the Western world. Japan, it is to be recalled, made perfectly clear in 1930 a determination not to be bound by the London Treaty, even with this clause inserted, beyond the end of 1936, and by recent denunciation of the Washington Treaty of 1922 and refusal to collaborate fully this year at London has held to the course then set. Additional reason for misgiving as to the Pacific arises from the apparent reluctance of the United States, as well as Japan, to vouchsafe explicit and convincing reasons for the competitive policy each seems set on pursuing.