NAVAL BUILDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1939, Page 5

NAVAL BUILDING

AND EXISTING TREATY OBLIGATIONS

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY TO ADMIRALTY. NO GROUNDS FOR BREAKING “HOLIDAY.” (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 12. A suggestion was made in a question in the House of Commons today that Britain should approach America and France with a view to regaining freedom to lay down Bin. gun cruisers before 1942. The ground for the suggestion was that such cruisers were being built by Germany. The Secretary of the Admiralty. Mr Geoffrey Shakespeare, who replied, said: “Germany was entitled under the Anglo-German Agreement of 1935 to build up to a maximum of five Bin. gun cruisers. I have no information that this maximum is being exceeded. There are, therefore, at present no grounds for approaching the Powers to whom Britain is bound by treaty with a view to Britain being released from her treaty obligations.” He reiterated in reply to supplementary questions with reference to German and Japanese naval building that there are no grounds at present for breaking the “naval holiday,” which was, on the whole, of great benefit to the Powers. He pointed out that Herr Hitler's denunciation of the Anglo-German naval agreement had contained a statement that Germany intended to adhere to the qualitative limits of the London Treaty.