DISARMAMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19134, 31 March 1924, Page 5

DISARMAMENT

FURTHER COHERENCE POSSIBLE. JAPANESE FAVOURABLE. Fi«w Association —By Til«e»pb— NEW YORK, March 29. (Received March 30, at 11.5 p.m.) The New York Times’s Tokio correspond dent says that Senator Borah’s resolution asking Mr Coolidge to call a further armament conference has given the disarmament movement here a further impetus. The Navy Department has already appointed experts to study the question of a reduction of auxiliary craft and aircraft, in order to have all data ready. Naval officers are of the opinion that it is only a matter of a short time until such a conference is called in order to check the growing competition of noncapital ships. The Japanese frankly hope that American public opinion will force the issue. The Japanese interest in the question is doubly great in view of the financial burden of reconstruction, and the competition of light craft would bo disastrous. At the same time Jingo elements view with alarm the activities of' other nations in this direction. The naval authorities consider the abandonment of Singapore as a demonstration of the British desire to check coxnpetiton in naval disarmament, and their willingness to patricipate in a conference for this purpose.—A. and N.Z. Cable.