NAVAL CONSTRUCTION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17174, 3 February 1930, Page 11

NAVAL CONSTRUCTION

QUESTION OF REDUCTION

COMPLICATED PROBLEM

BRITAIN'S "CUTS"

(British Official Wi-.i-ss.)

Bee. 3 p.m. HUUIJY, Feb. 1. 'there, will be no committee work during the week-end by the Five-Power Naval Conference delegates. M. Tardieu is paying a short visit to Paris, where M. Briand preceded him yesterday. Signer Grandi and Mr. Wakatsuki are going to the seaside and Mr. Mae Donald to his official country residence, Chequers. The delegates will take much work with them, including papers relating to the proposal whereby the British category and the French global theories arc "correlated. On this complicated important problem there is hope of a solution. Mr. Mac-Donald's optimistic statement that the partition dividing the, French and British is so thin as to be almost transparent is borne out in French delegation circles. Britain is unlikely to accept, tlu* compromise proposal formally however, until, the views of other delegations at the conference have been delined and until tho whole matter has been thrashed out in committee.

Tho so-called "first committee" has now been turned into a committee of all the delegates and is in effect the conference sitting as a committee, in private. The next such meeting as at pre sent .arranged takes place on Tuesday. REDUCTION BY BRITAIN. The. newspapers call attention to tho .significance of the recent announcements regarding the reduction in the British naval construction programme for 19291930. It is reckoned that naval tonnage which Britain in the ordinary course would have laid down in the current financial year has been reduced by nearly 30,000 "tons, or over 50 per cent. This is regarded as an impressive lead to the conference, although some newspapers consider the cancellations excessive,' particularly as they have, been made without any effort to use such reductions as a bargain counter with other naval powers. The Daily Herald, justifying the latest naval cuts, says: ''The. foreign delegates at. tho conference fully realise; the significance, of Iho Government's revision of tho naval programme. The cuts entail a total saving of £9.000,000. They ar t > of two kinds—first, the cancellation of the. cruisers Surrey and Northumberland, the preliminary work on which is being scrapped; secondly, the reduction of tho 1929 programme before any work has begun or orders placed. This is not one-sided disarmament. It is a measure of tho Government's confidence as to tho outcomo of the conference. If the conference succeeds tho vessels dropped will not be required, and tho Government., therefore, has decided not to begin work which might have to be scrapped later. The change will not entail the discharge of Government dockyard employees. .Mrs. Smnvden gave n reception do llie delegates to the conference at No. 1 I Downing Street. Mr. Benton. Mr. and Mrs. Wilford. and General Sir Granville R-vrie attended.