GREAT BRITAIN MADE BIG NAVAL CONCESSION IN 1921.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18787, 17 June 1929, Page 2

GREAT BRITAIN MADE BIG NAVAL CONCESSION IN 1921.

GAyE UP COMMAND OF SEAS, SAYS MR WINSTON CHURCHILL. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON. June 15. Mr Winston Churchill, in a speech on the approaching interview of General C. G. Dawes with Mr Ramsay MacDonald, said that he welcomed the recovery of full personal freedom of speech on the question of Anglo-Amer-ican naval relations. “ Great Britain at Washington in 1921,” said Mr Churchill, “ had sincerely and irrevocably abandoned the supremacy of the sea which she had enjoyed without abuse for a century, and accepted Anglo-American equality. But this implied a special regard for the entirely different circumstances of this crowded island, which could be starved in a few weeks, and the great continent in which the people of the United States dwelt so safely and prosper ously. It would not be a fair interpretation of the theory of equal powers on the sea to ha\’e a mere numerical measure, or two fleets each a replica of the other. This would not give Britain equality, but, under the guise of equal ity, she would be in an absolute and final inferiority. Any naval agreement must be based on a tolerant, goodhearted spirit -towards naval affairs on both sides of the Atlantic. If naval equality was going to lead to jealous suspicious scrutiny of every ship, gun and annourplate, it would be better to remain without an agreement, each country going her own way, acting in a sensible and neighbourly fashion, but free and unfettered.—Australian Press Association.