PEACE OF THE WORLD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 115, 17 May 1930, Page 9

PEACE OF THE WORLD

LONDON NAVAL TREATY CONSIDERATION BY COMMONS STATEMENT BY THE PREMIER 1 British Official Wireless. 7 RUGBY, May 15. The Prime Minister, Mr J. R. MacItonaJd, to-day opened the debate in the House of Commons on the London Naval Conference, He said that it aimed at making a ■ubstantial contribution to the problem of general disarmament. We must bend our attention not merely to the aea but to the air and land, because by the mere limitation of one form of armament, we were not going very far to secure the peace of the world. e had also to note another very •erious circumstance. Since the failure at Geneva in 1927 a great deterioration in the peace spirit had taken place. Although since the war the League of Nations had been created and arbitration and peace pacts had been signed, when they came to close grips with the problem of the provision of arms, they found very little value placed upon those peace pacts and those organisations to secure peace The nations undoubtedly were fulling back into their old mentality. Ola fears and old superstitions Regarding security were returning, and exactly the same kind of argument so familiar before 1914 was coming up unblushing and unussumed to-day. He did not say these things in order to strike a pessimistic note—quite the opposite—because the time was still with us when we could, and by making spirited efforts to change the mentality we would, still save Europe and the world from what was called the next war. They had those things in mind during tile long days of tne London Naval Conference. Agzaczaect with America. There was a general view, said Mr MacDonald, that very little could be done by way of advancing naval disarmament until the United States and ourselves had come to an agreement. He though' that view was sound. The Government's predecessors had said that they were pcifvctly willing that )Le United States should build to parky. Thore was a certain school which Impressed the view that it was unnecesFUy to pursue agreements any further, fee we could never imagine a conflict with America, and why should we worabout the force America was putting On the water? Whether eight-inch •raisers or six-inch cruisers, whatever they eared to build, was no concern of ours. That view was a very attractive one, but it waa very unsound. If the Whole world occupied with America the same relations which we had, it Would be a sound view, but unfortunately that was not the case, and whether we took notice of what was being <lona on the other side of the Atlantic or not, other nations Y/ould , and it was with those other nations lhat v.c were concerned. He Lad come to the conclusion after Baieful consideration that the founda bon of real security and international

■ndeistanding relating to naval building must be an agreement between America and ourselves, such as they had been abie to effect at the London Naval Conference. That piece of work had been done.

,Ccripe fit* ou In Building. There were two other prominent objects, continued Air MacDonald, that tile Naval Conference had to try and achieve. The first was this: What was so disconcerting to peace was not always the size of fleets, but the growing competition in the building of fleets. Competition in building was worth a great sacrifice. They had succeeded, as regarded three Powers at any rate, in stopping that competition, and they had also succeeded in getting from the two other l overs, which for ycrious reasons were unable to sub•ciibe to that part oi the treaty, a declaration that they were going to consider the situation in which they found themselves with decisive determination to accommodate their building in future to the standard that had been put Part HI of the London Agreement. That was a very great achievement. The second point was that relating to deductions. So far as reduction was IBoncerned they had only been able to get three Powers to agree to it, but the atory was not yet finished. It was Mill being continued, and all he could aay at present was that after such speeches as that delivered l»y Signor Grand! the other day, he was encouraged to entertain the hopes that the.se eontinuing conversations would bo Successful.

Battleship Holiday. M r Mac Donald said that there were Vuriou-i suggestions that we ought to |k»c this opportunity eilner to devise a Jbcw batticsmp ur to reduce the ton>fige ox battleships. Iho battleship limit at the present time was 35,UUU Ums, and it was suggested that we might put IU,UUu-ton oat tiesnips at sea of 35,1’00 tons. They could not get any two Powers to agree to any Sort of reduction in battleships. If fchey began to tamper with battleships they did not know where they were |joing to end. Instead of having protaammes of a small type of battleship bf 10,000 tons, the chances were that khuir naval designers would provide a new type of lighting vessel, and they Would have to put a fleet or a section If a fleet of this smaller type on to the Reason in order to keep up competition, think," said Air MacDonald, “the Hew we took was a sound one, and |hut, instead of tampering with battleships, we should stop building them hntil 1936, and. by 1936 there will have been plenty of time to consider what te the function of battleships in naval fttrategy, what is the use of the batlie ship, and what the use of the heavier type of war vessels, or, what fcould please me far butter, to sec whether we cannut cume to the cunKusiun that the battleship had better : regarded obsolete altogether.” With regard to cruisers there had fceen a great deal of controversy in bhiuh the Admiralty had been blamed, iut, instead of 7U which had been the ■guru regarded up io now as the mininum of safety, they had fixed upon 50, nude up of 15 eight-inch and 35 sixIneh cruisers. It had been said that La- done by us under pressure from |hc United States. That was not the |asc. Before the United States gave

any views on the subject we were havnig this subject investigated by our experts. Admiralty’a Viewpoint. He would declare the Admiraltv’s position again so that there might’be no misunderstanding. The Admiralty’s position was that under conditions such as existed to-day the number of 50 cruisers could be accepted for a strictly limited period, provided always that the other Powers met our standard of 50 and provided also that in our 50 there was a proper proportion of new construction suitable for extended operations. The meaning of that was nothing horrible, nothing that need shock his pacifist friends. A good many of our six-inch cruisers were built specially for war purposes during the war, and their operations were only meant to cover the North »Sea and the waters immediately adjoining our coasts, and in replacing them the Admiralty said: “We will require to have cruisers not of more tonnage, not of heavier metal or anything like that, but cruisers that will enable sailors to be comfortable inside them if they were further removed from Great Britain than these specially war-built vessels could go. The saving on the programme in cruisers, destroyers, and submarines was estimated at a sum of about £15,000,000.