JAPAN WITHDRAWS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 13, 16 January 1936, Page 7

JAPAN WITHDRAWS

THE NAVAL CONFERENCE DUE TO ADAMANT OPPOSITION OF POWERS NO INTENTION TO START NAVAL COMPETITION IBy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) Received Jan. 15, 9.20 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 16. Japan has decided to withdraw from the Naval Conference. The decision was conveyed to the British delegation because Britain summoned the Conference, and Britain passed it on to the Americans at an informal meeting to consider the future of the Conference. When Japan’s departure was officially notified the Japanese spokesman said that the breakdown is “not due to the adamant attitude of the Japanese, but to the adamant opposition of the other delegates to her claim for a common upper limit,” and the refusal of all the others Powers to concede equality to Japan. There is no astonishment at the Japanese decision, which brings a measure of relief to the delegations, whose patience had long been tried by Admiral Nagano’s persistence in the forlorn hope of the other Powers agreeing to equality. Official Pronouncement. The Japanese spokesman says: “We don’t think the result of our withdrawal will mean a building raee. We don’t want and don’t mean to build up to the level of Britain and the United States, though the United States’ building treaty limits causes uneasiness in Japan. Unless naval competition is created by others we don’t intend to start. Nevertheless the Washington and London Treaties "have proved unsatisfactory to our national defence. The ratio established at V ashington was unfair to Japan, and we see no reason why it should be perpetuated.” One effect of the breakdown of the Conference will be to draw the relations of the British and American delegates closer. The Japanese are undecided whether to leave observers at Ihe Naval Conference, which is carrying on on a four-Power basis. The English and American delegations conferred this morning and discussed the future of the Conference. Mr. Hector Bywater, writing in the Daily Telegraph, says: “Japan’s defiant gesture has rendered inevitable the completion of the American building programme, which by 1942 will give the United States the world’s greatest navy. The situation will become more dangerous should America decide to carry out her plan of creating new naval bases in the Pacific, in which case Britain might be compelled to reconsider her strategic position there, including the restoration of the defences at Hongkong, which have been untouched for 16 years and are now out of date.