BRITAIN'S NAVAL POLICY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19156, 12 November 1927, Page 17

BRITAIN'S NAVAL POLICY.

DISARMAMENT ASPECT. OPINIONS IN HOUSE OF LORDS. (ST CABLI PBJSS ASSOCIATION - —COTTHIOBT.) (AUSTRALIAN ASD K.Z AST 3 SPK CABLE.) (Received November 11th, 9.40 p.m.) LONDON, November 10. In the House of Lords, Lord Wester Wemyss drew attention to the breakdown of the Geneva Naval Conference. He said: "Our forces are in no wise too great to secure our trade routes, and a reduction would be a risk which no Government would accept. We are bound by the declaration of Paris, to which neither the United States nor Japan are signatories. "Command of the seas is so essential to Britain that, once it was lost, our resistance to an enemv would be broken down, and we would be cut off from the world. We would be incapable of maintaining ourselves. This does not apply in the case of anv other country, but so long aa we adhered to the declaration of Paris our geographical position would be no asset "to us, and war, when once it had broken out, must be prolonged?' Lord Wemyss thought, however, that in certain circumstances naval armaments might be reduced without jeopardising our sea communications. He believed that ultimately there would not be peace through disarmament, but disarmament through peace. Lord Stanhope, replying, said the British Fleet was one of the greatest foundations of the peace of the world. It would be impossible to withdraw from the declaration of Paris without admitting a dangerous precedent that a party could withdraw from a treaty at any time. The only other way would be by consent of the other signatories or bv inducing the Assembly of the League of Nations to revise the reconstruction of the Treaty as inapplicable under Article 19 of the Covenant. Lord Haldane thought Mr W. C. Bridgeman, First Lord of the Admiralty, had spoken at Geneva too much as a seaman. Reduction of armaments should be discussed on a wider basis than mere naval efficiency. He wished that before the Conference the Government had been aided by the Committee of Imperial Defence and not the Admiralty, and had set out fully our plain necessities. It was a mistake to go to Geneva without preliminary agreement, but the position was not hopeless. We must continue our efforts in th: direction of disarmament, which was the only hope of bringing large economies. Earl Balfour said the abolition of the Declaration of Paris would not be to our interests. Moreover, diplomatically, it would be wholly and utterly impossible. It was a difficult and delicate subject, and Parliamentary discussion might lead to discord and not harmony. He did not believe the differences of opinion between the naval Powers were irreconcilable, but it was difficult to bring about reconciliation. Without the British Fleet, France's resistance to Germany in the Great War could not have lasted a year. The House adjourned.