WHO IS DISARMING?

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

WHO IS DISARMING?

ONLY BRITISH SACRIFICE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE [By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright! Received May 16, 10.10 p.m. LONDON, May 15. Air Winston Churchill, following Air MacDonald in the naval debate, said that the London Treaty differed fundamentally from the Washington Treaty. The London pact was not a parity treaty but a formal acceptance of definitely inferior sea-power. Washington confined itself to a battle sphere and left us free to make our own arrangements for the protection of commerce and food supplies by means of cruisers and other craft.

Reviewing the Anglo-American naval strengths in 1926, Air Churchill stated that undoubtedly the American fleet would be superior to ours. We were no longer to have a navy even for battle purposes, to say nothing of trade protection, equal to other leading navies. Thus the treaties meant that the British Empire was solemnly accepting a permanently secondary position in sca-powcr. The Government had thus gone beyond what was wise and right. The Opposition had been powerless to avert such a position. They could not accept the slightest responsibility for the present, nor invest the Government’s act with national sanction. “We hold ourselves free to review the whole situation,” Mr Churchill said. (Opposition cheers).

Mr Churchill added that Japan had increased her ratio and came within 30 per cent of the strength of the British Empire, which was scattered all over the surface of the globe. France and Italy had gone off perhaps to embark in serious naval rivalry; America was making the greatest naval expansion ever seen, .aid the only power which was actually disarming was the one which had already done the most disarming. Ai,this stage the House adjourned.

CONSERVATIVE AMENDMENT NON-RATIFICATION URGED Received May 16, 10.20 p.m. LONDON, May Eighty-two Cons ervativc me. .oers of the Commons, headed by Rear-Admiral Beamish, tabled a motion that part three of the naval treaty dealing with cruisers, destroyer:; and submarines, is contrary to the interests of the British Efiipirc and ought not to be ratified. AMEIMCAN OPINIONS CONFLICTING STATEMENTS Received May 36, 10.30 p.m. WASHINGTON, May 15. Admiral Hilary Jones, giving evidence before the Senate Committee, bitterly condemned the London treaty. He criticised the limitation of eightinch vessels. With this type, he argued the treaty would not only give Britain an. advantage over the United States, but would enable Japan’s 70 per cent ratio actually to mean 100 per cent, under present conditions, and would handicap the United States in the event of war in the Pacific.

He criticised the treaty’s escalator clause intimating that the circumstances might cause Britain to take advantage of it and build bej rond the treaty limits.

Admiral Pratt, giving evidence before the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, defended the division of cruisers and declared his satisfaction with the treaty.