TONNAGE THEORIES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17178, 7 February 1930, Page 7

TONNAGE THEORIES

NAVAL DISARMAMENT COMPROMISE PROPOSALS EXAMINATION CONTINUED (British Official Wireless.) Ree. noon. RUGBY, Feb. 6. The first committee of the Five-power Naval Conference is continuing the examination ibis afternoon of the compromise proposals on the category and global tonnage theories. The next public session of the .(inference is fixed for Tuesday, when the British Prime Minister will state the reasons which have led Britain to suggest the total abolition of submarines. It, is generally recognised that the altitude of other countries towards underwater craft removes any possibility thai the conference would agree to sucli a course, but it is felt tin* a full explanation ot the Uritish attitude towards submarines will provide an opporunity for a review of the question, during which the standpoint of each country can be expressed After the plenary announcement was mado to-day the French Inst no time in informing the press that M. Tardieu on Tuesday" will outline proposals for humanising submarine warfare. A convention for tins purpose was drawn up

in Washington in 1922, but was never ratified. The French delegates, _ welcoming the attempt to "ginger up" the conference work, de dared : "The conference could be concluded in 10 to 12 davs if certain oilier delegates agreed." Although the delegates are, satisfied with the general trend of the conference, there was an improvement at last night's meeting of the delegations with Mr. MacDonald's suggestion that means should bo found for speeding its progress. Although the delegations have been busily engaged on questions of much complexity, they have been reminded that tlie time factor requires that the discussions should produce decisions without undue delay. BRITAIN'S "CUTS" Mr. A. V. Alexander has now supplemented the information regarding the cancellations in the British construction programme for -1929-30. He states : "The total estimated direct financial saving on new construction due to the abandonment of two cruisers, three submarines, four destroyers, two sloops, and a netlayer included in the. Navy estimates of 1929. the new programme originally laid before Parliament, is £6.500.000. None of these cancelled ships had been ordered and no compensation, therefore, is payable in respect of them. A decision respecting the three submarines remaining in the programme is held in abeyance pending tho conclusion of the London naval conference." The Times in a leading article to-day emphasised the strength of the Prime .Minister's political position. It says: "Though he is technically the head of a- minority government, no Primo Minister was ever for the time being in a, more impregnable position. If for any reason of bis own'he were to go to the country to-morrow he would unquestionably he returned to office. In the meanwhile, all parties are, deeply concerned for the success of the naval conference and none of them has shown the slightest disposition to be critical or impatient, still less to transfer its conduit to other hands." DEPUTATION OF WOMEN The Women's Peace Crusade and similar organisations formed a deputation to-St. .lames' Palace and were received by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald on behalf of the whole conference. Mr. MacDonald was accompanied by .Messrs. Stimson, Wakatsuki, Pent on. and Wilford. A deputation of women to the naval conference was introduced by Mrs. Corbett Ashby, president of the British Commonwealth League. She described it as a memorable occasion, because it presented women as a new factor in international politics. Women were not only idealists, but represented a practical political force, believing a reduction in armaments practicable in all countries. They would be enormously disappointed if the conference accomplished only a little. .Mrs. Edgerton Parsons, a, prominent American university woman, representing the Conference on the Cause and Cure of War, declared her belief that women could specially help disarmament. "We believe the hour has struck to lay another foundation stone in the edifice of peace by bringing the abolition of the institution of war by substantially reducing naval armaments, in token of which we present our memorials." Mrs. Parson said. Mrs. Parsons, accompanied by Miss Josephine Schain, and Mrs. Caspar" Whitney, deposited tjie memorials on the table and shook hands with Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Stimson. Madame Uustav Rudler, on behalf of France, recited an impressive list of 10 women's organisations she represented, including the League of Mothers. She entreated the conference not to cease its efforts until a measure of security had been achieved. SUPPORT OF WOMEN Lady Victor lfoi'selcy, Great Britain, representing the Women's Peaco Crusade, speaking for 2,000,0X0 women of 18 nationalities, presented resolutions praying for a decrease in naval armaments. She recounted women's wartime sacrifices, tho hardest of which was parting with husbands and sons without a word or sign. She declared that women would help to fulfil the conference's work one-thousandfold more gladly than they had carried out tho strenuous and agonising work in the war years. "For oyery reduction in armaments you may secure you will receive the. gratitude and unswerving support of the women of this country," she said. "If our battleships and cruisers were doubled our danger from starvation would not be, reduced, but the suspicion of the world would be aroused against us. Oui' security lies in the widest extension of arbitration, the outlawry of war, and the abolition of Hie materials of war."

Mrs. ('. T. Gauntlett, Japan, supported by Miss Uta Hayashi, to both of whom' .Mrs. Corbett Ash by paid a tribute as the initiators of the present movement, faced Mr. Ramsay MacDonald with a dress basket, containing a huge petition with the signatures of 180,000 women, at her feet, It was summarised to the briefest degree before being handed in, Mrs. Gauntlett re rking naively: "The basket is too heavy for me to carry."

Mr. MacDonald expressed delight at the presence of the deputation, and said thai no hour could have been spent more profitably than the hour spent receiving t hem. "We stand here at the top table in the light of tin' world, sometimes colored by newspapers, sometimes pure, but my women friends from all nations represented h<*r« are far more entitled to this postion than we are," Mr. MacDonald said: "You have been pioneers in this work. Your work is not done, nor is ours. This conference Is not the last to be held, and our agreement, whether it satisfies you or not, is not the last word in

disarmament, for which we beg you to continue your good work so that the conference vvhicli will succeed this one will give you more satisfaction than we shall have been able to do when our labors have been completed. DIFFICULTIES FACING CONFERENCE Mr. MacDonald reviewed the difficulties at the completion of the conference and touched on the. aims of the various nations, who felt the problem of security with differing emphasis and regarded it from different angles. He emphatically declared : "1 think wo are, going to get a good agreement," and added that the conference would secure more than that oven if the agreement fell short of the expectations. The conference's greatest achievement was that each delegate had learned to know the others, and rev«al himself afld his mind to them, reaching materials for mutual understanding, resulting in immense moral gain. The conference not only faced ships and navies actually built, but something much more dangerous, namely, the programmes and projects of naval building plans. A reduction in programmes was equally effective as a reduction in the existing vessels. Mr. Rtimson also thanked the deputation and endorsed Mr. MacDonald's remarks. lie pointed out that the progress of disarmament must lie lengthy and evolutionary because the vital process of engendering an international mental habit of mutual trust was necessarily slow. Mrs. Corbel t Ashhy, returning thanks, said: "You, sir. have given us a more inspiring message than Hie unfortunate one conveyed by Charles Kingsley—' Men must work but women must weep,' Yon have suggested that women must work, too."