THE CRUISER CRISIS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19367, 25 July 1925, Page 4

THE CRUISER CRISIS.

The British Cabinet has emerged safely from what now appears to have been an acute crisis involving possible resignations and a weakness of prestige. The difficulty arose over Mr. Churchill’s proposal as Chancellor of the Exchequer to exercise severe economies in the navy, the most debateable part of his intentions being to curtail the existing modest programme of cruiser construction. Mr. Churchill from the. beginning of his political career has been the stormy petrel of Parliament and Cabinet. Those who have studied his methods know that whatever his faults may be, there is no limit to his zeal for the particular department of State which he happens for the time being to control. Had he been First Lord of the Admiralty on this particular occasion he would in all probability have been insisting on more money from the Chancellor than the Admiralty is now asking from him. With Mr. Churchill, circumstances alter cases.

Press opinion on the cruiser crisis is based mainly on the question of a revival of naval rivalry. The London Daily News remarks that the result of the crisis is that so far as the sea is concerned the race in armaments is now to begin again. The

more conservative journals, which for some past have evinced uneasiness at the activity of other countries in respect to cruiser construction, express relief that more activity is now to be allowed in the yards. However that may be, the world is now facing the fact that so far as cruiser construction is concerned naval disarmament is a vanishing dream. As far back as December last the New I ork world called attention to the fact that in the capitals of the three great naval Powers—in London, in Tokio, and in Washington, an agitation was proceeding which threatened another race of naval armaments. The time would seem to be ripe for another Washington Conference.