The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1926. THE NAVAL LIMITS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19732, 29 December 1926, Page 6

The Wanganui Chronicle WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1926. THE NAVAL LIMITS

The statement from Washington to the effect that Great Britain last summer rejected a proposal from the United States to summon a conference on naval limitation is of a piece with the comments that accompanied the announcement of the American decision to build ten cruisers. On that occasion it was alleged that the Powers which had signed the Washington Treaty were not honouring it in spirit. The obvious reply was that Britain at any rate had given the most practical evidence of her desire for limitation by drastically reducing the number of her capital ships. The latest Washington rejoinder is simply a specious attempt to discredit Britain and at the same time to justify the naval construction programme authorised by Congress.

The Washington Treaty is, of course, a very imperfect instrument for effecting the restriction of naval armaments. It abolished competition in capital ship building by fixing a ratio for the ownership of such ships by Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy respectively. It restricted the dimensions and armament of cruisers, but not the number. Destroyers and submarines were not affected by its provisions, though the tonnage and armament of aircraft carriers were limited. The restrictions marked a great step forward,but the Treaty left room for very considerable variation in the respective strengths of the Ppwers in fighting craft other than battleships.

The United States Government through its spokesmen now professes a desire to apply the five-five-three ratio, now operative in respect of capital ships, to cruisers and auxiliary ships. It is rather significant that at present the navy of the United States is weaker than that of Great Britain in light cruisers, but. it boasts a very marked numerical superiority in destroyers and it possesses double the number of submarines. It is clearly

impossible to assess in any exact and definite ratio the fighting value of naval forces the composition of<which shows great variation. The effective value of craft of different type depends on circumstances.

Jt has always been recognised by the Admiralty at Whitehall that Great Britain’s paramount need is of cruisers for the protection of the Empire’s enormously extended lines of communication and trade routes. No other Power is in a like position to the British Empire in its need of an adequate cruiser patrol, and had it not been necessary that considerations of economy should be closely studied there would be more British cruisers afloat or under construction than there are at the present time. In view of the Empire’s obvious requirements Great Britain can certainly claim to have embarked on a very modest amount of new cruiser construction.

The Navy League a few months ago published a useful comparison of the strengths of the British, American, and Japanese navies, which showed that, far from improving her position as regards cruisers, destroyers and submarines, Great Britain was not even holding her own. It was pointed out that she possessed fifteen more cruisers than the United States, many of them, however, being old and small, while the United States owned more destroyers than Great Britain and Japan put together, and also eleven more submarines than the total possessed by these two Powers. The conclusion was reached that “the figures show that, not only has our naval strength deteriorated numerically in the .past year, as compared with the other principal naval Powers, but also that the situation will be worse at the end of the present year as regards the particular classes of vessels referred to above.”

This statement affords a striking commentary on the attempt made at Washington to persuade the world that Britain is the. serious obstacle in the way of a new effort to limit naval armaments. Britain has quite dropped behind in the competition of armaments, while the United States actually be the strongest sea Power, even without her projected new cruisers. No Power has approached the sacrifice made by Britain in accordance with the terms of the Washington Treaty. When the others have shown such loyalty to the spirit of that agreement as Britain has done it will be worth while to call a conference for the discussion of further limitation.