POWERS NAVY STRENGTH

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1929, Page 9

POWERS NAVY STRENGTH

SURPRISING REVELATION STATES AHEAD OF BRITAIN AMERICANS IMPRESSED By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. London, Dec. 19. A surprising fact is revealed by the Daily Telegraph’s naval contributor. The British navy, instead of being superior in strength to that of the United States, as asserted in America, is actually greatly inferior in every category except small cruisers. The correspondent, Mr. Hector Bywater, asserts that this can actually be proved from the yardstick prepared for the benefit of the United States delegation to the London Naval Conference. The United States navy, in fact, is in. excess of the Washington Treaty ratio. It is understood that the revelation has deeply impressed President Hoover’s Cabinet and other American statesmen, who have hitherto accepted the propagandists’ view that the American navy was badly outclassed by the British. In the House of Commons, Mr. MacDonald announced that the King would deliver the opening address at the Naval Conference. WARSHIP-BUILDING HOLIDAY. JAPANESE SUPPORT. PROPOSAL. New York, Dec. 19. The former Premier of Japan, Mr. Reijiro Wakatsuki, the chief Japanese delegate to the London naval limitations conference, will enter the conference prepared to support the proposal that there be a complete holiday in the building of capital ships until 1936. A joint statement has been issued today by the United States and Japanese delegations to London to the effect that the discussion was concerned with the general philosophy underlying naval agreements and the opportunities of the coming conference. It took up the good results between the United States and Japan of the Washington Conference and the possibilities of continuing and increasing those results in a very frank and friendly way. Each delegation presented a broad outline of its position. The Washington Post, in an editorial, said it was needless to say that the Americans looked with some uneasiness upon the position that the size and relative strength of the United States navy were to be determined by a political bargain with other Powers, and that expert naval counsel was to be minimised, if not disregarded entirely. The public would be vastly reassured if the Secretary for the Navy should take part in the conference, which may shape the future of the navy. When Messrs. Stimson and Morrow enter into an exchange of naval views with, such an expert as Admiral Takaraba it is not to be expected that the Americans can hold their own.

Following a final conference with the Japanese delegates, Mr. Stimson announced that an agreement had been established in the American and Japanese objects. He said that no figures or details had been discussed, because those matters must await the action of the full conference.

Mr. Stimson, in a separate formal statement, vigorously challenged a leader in the Washington Post alleging that the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Adams, had been slighted in not having been invited to meet the Japanese.

Mr. Stimson declared that the leader had been printed with the deliberate intention of making trouble among the American delegates to the conference and members of the President’s Cabinet, in order to discredit the Government before the Japanese delegation, and thus try to cause the breakdown of the London conference.