“HEADING FOR COLLISION”

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1929, Page 9

“HEADING FOR COLLISION”

U.S. AND BRITAIN DISAGREE CONTROVERSY ON SEA RIGHTS RENUNCIATIONS ADVOCATED By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Australian Press Association. Received Aug. 15, 8.40 p.m. United Service. New York, Aug. 14. “The United States and Great Britain are heading for a collision on the.question of sea power unless they agree on the real meaning of sea rights,” said Mr. George Young, a member of the British Parliament, when speaking before the arms limitation committee at the Institute of Politics at Williamstown (Massachusetts). “Two fundamentally different attitudes mark the policies of the' two nations,” Mr. Young said. “If it is to the command of the seas that the British owe their national existence and colonial Empire, in other words our daily bread, it is to the freedom of the' seas you Americans owe your national independence.

“To say a collision over the issue is unthinkable is equivalent to saying: ‘We don’t think!’

“Since the Great War I am aghast at realising how. far and fast the United States and the British ships of State have come athwart each other’s course and to-day are. heading for sure collision. ”

As a solution Mr. Young advocated British renunciation of the command of the seas in. respect to the right to declare a private blockade against a private enemy and American renunciation •of freedom of the seas in respect, to the right to supply the sinews of war to a public enemy.