TWO OCEAN NAVY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 April 1938, Page 10

TWO OCEAN NAVY

STANDARD OF UNITED STATES A “two-ocean” navy standard for the United States received President Roosevel’s approval in a carefully phrased answer at his press conference, the Washington correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor.” His statement confirms existing State and Navy Department policies and rules out any prospect of an early world conference on naval limitation. The informal remarks by which he conveyed this attitude were all the more significant in that they came in response to a question whether he is opposed to any increase in Japan’s naval ratio with the United States. He

did not answer at once, but finally he replied substantially as follows: “The opinion of those who know the most about the problems of national defence is that the United States can not rely on a single defence in one ocean; in other words, that there are more defensive possibilities than in one ocean. We might be faced by a war on both sides and therefore we have to consider defence on both sides.” Allowing for the diplomatic restrictions which conditioned this response it means that the President personally sanctions the theory that adequate national defence means a “two-ocean-navy.” And a “two-ocean-navy,” as interpreted by navy witnesses and spokesmen, means a total navy which would approximate the old 5-3 ratio with Japan. Britain is now building a “two-hemisphere navy,” by which British spokesmen mean a fleet for European waters of about the size of the pre-naval race navy, plus a Far Eastern squadron pf five or six battleships with appropriate supporting strength in other types. Discussing the problem of British

publicity abroad, a function recently entrusted to a special committee under Sir Robert Vansittart, the “Spectator” says:—The task, manifestly, is twofold—to decide what we want foreign countries to believe about Britain and to find means of persuading them to believe it. If the tale is not worth telling, then nothing could be more fatal than to try to tell it. If the essential facts cannot be presented without embroidery or mitigation, the first thing to do is to change the facts. If British policy regarding colonies, or Palestine, or raw materials, is based primarily on self-interest, then the attempt to represent it as altruistic will merely bring our professions into disrepute and ensure for future announcements a sceptical and antagonistic reception. But having in the main, as we British may claim to have,, a conscience voil of offence we can concentrate with some confidence on the work of self-interpretation, with the purpose not at all of imposing British culture or a - British outlook on - other countries —that would be a piece of arrogance calculated" to arouse resentment every where—but of helping other countries to understand what British culture, the aims of Great Britain as a member of the society of nations and ’ the hopes of the average Briton for humanity are. That is a task eminently worth attempting in the interests not only of national prestige, but of genuine international understanding.