NAVY AGREEMENT

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 225, 22 September 1928, Page 9

NAVY AGREEMENT

BRITAIN AND FRANCE.

Purported Text Of Letter In

American Paper.

STEPS FOB NEGOTIATIONS.

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received 12 noon.) RUGBY, September 21

An American newspaper has published what purports to be the text of a letter from the French Foreign Office to the French diplomatic missions containing the terms of the Anglo-French naval compromise.

The official publication of the compromise, it is necessary to emphasise, has been postponed, pending the receipt from the chief naval Powers to whom it had been communicated, of their comments upon it as a possible basis for discussion at the Preparatory Conference on Disarmament.

Contrary to rumours continually repeated in some quarters, the full terms, and not only part of them, were communicated to the United States, Japanese and Italian Governments some weeks ago. It is understood that the Japanese and Italian Governments have notified Paris and London that they are disposed to be favourably impressed by the proposals as a basis for discussion, but in the absence of a reply from Washington the publication of the proposals has been delayed, in accordance with the usual procedure in such cases.

3 Unfortunately the normal procedure in this instance provoked an unprece--1 dented crop of rumours which entirely f misinterpreted the purpose, extent and r aim of the compromise. The true facts r are that progress at the Preparatory Com- ) mission for the Disarmament Conference t had been for a long period delayed by i differences of view on systems of reckoning naval tonnage, the leading protagonr ists being the British and French repre- > sentativeß. Broadly stated, Britain l favoured calculation by naval categories i and the French favoured calculation by i fixation of global amounts, divisible aci cording to the individual desires of' the Powers concerned. As the result of ; private conversations the British and s French reached a compromise which I would enable progress to be resumed in • the Preparatory Commission, provided . always that the other chief naval Powers - accepted it. It was promptly communii cated in full to the other Powers affected, it having been explicitly stated by Lord Cushendun, Acting-Foreign Secretary, and other Ministers that in the event of the proposals not proving acceptable to them the compromise would automatically cease to have importance, , in which event the search for an agreement wpuld have to be resumed in the Preparatory Commission along other lines. British official circles naturally cannot . comment on the authenticity or otherwise of a document belonging to another Power, which the American newspaper publishes. Although the terms reproduced of the naval compromise are aci curate, except for a reference to the tonnage of ocean-going submarines, 1 vessels are reckoned as deep-water craft , when they exceed 600 and not 6000 tons, • as stated in the American report. ARMS CONFERENCE. [' ABANDONMENT POSSIBLE. I (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) i (Received 1 p.m.) GENEVA, September 21. The economic report and resolutions were adopted, and the drafting committee agreed to the terms of a motion for submission to the Third Committe.e on . September 24, proposing that the* Dis- ' armament Committee should meet in January or February, 1929J either to draw up a convention for assembling a general disarmament conference or for , declaring that it is impossible to draw | up such a convention, and thereby indicating that the meeting of a general conference would be useless.