DISARMAMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16496, 5 August 1921, Page 5

DISARMAMENT.

BRITAIN’S NAVAL POLICY. MR ASQUITH’S PROTEST. By Telegraph—Pres* Association—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. LONDON, August 3. Mr Asquith, in the House of Commons, said it would be the worst possible policy to appear to regulate our construction of battleships by the United states. He hoped the House would not be induced to enter into wasteful criminal competition with those who we hoped to become permanent Allies. “We ought only to build ships necessary to provide against risks of the interruption of international communications.” Mr G. Lambert contended that now ships were unnecessary. Mr Lloyd George was going to Washington as the dove of peace, but he was building after-war Dreadnoughts. Mr M’Lean moved to reduce the vote by £IOOO. MR WINSTON CHURCHILL’S VIEW. THE VOTE CARRIED. LONDON, August 4. Mr Winston Churchill deprecated the aggravation of the situation by extreme language. It was an astonishing fact, he said, that save for the Hood the leaning capital units had not been reinforced for more than seven years. In the meantime two other navies had revolutionised their construction accord.ng to the lessons learned in the late war. “ If we delay another year,” he said, “we shall sink to the level of a third-rate naval Power and may never recover. We would exist then as a great Power only on sufferance. Our power to guide events for good would cease, and we could not extend to the dominions that protection which we have always been proud to extend. Our hopes for the success of tho Washington Conference are of the sincerest, but unless we can assume that the ships now building ixi Japan and America will be scrapped, any disarmament decision at Washington will be irrelevant to the decision reached to-night.” He added that if Britain failed to construct now she would stereotype the present position or inferiority. Britain must declare that she would not accept a position of definite naval inferiority. Let her be sure she could rely on her own strength and never allow her sea power to fall to a point when she would be forced to make entangling agreements to avoid a path 4 ' which would load to the greatest disaster not only to herself but to the whole world. The vote was carried. A message received from London yesterday stated that Colonel L. C. M. S. Emery (Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty), introduced the Naval Estimates, which provided for the construction of four new capital ships. Ho stated that it was not a policy of competition or a challenge, but was simply a replacement of obsolete ships. DATE OF CONFERENCE NOT FIXED. WASHINGTON, Auerusfc S. The State Department announces officially that it proposed November 11 for the opening of the Disarmament Conference, but an agreement has not been reached.