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Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 23, 27 July 1939, Page 16

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LONDON NAVAL TREATY

One of the virtually inevitable results of recent events is the abrogation in the near future of the London Naval Treaty of 1936, the signatories to which are the British Empire, the United States, and France, writes Hector Bywater in the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post." Preliminary moves by the three Powers are already in train. Now that Herr Hitler had denounced the Anglo-German naval agreement, the whole groundwork of the 1936 Three-Power Pact has collapsed. One of the most probable results of these event" i_, I learn, a redrafting of the British construction programme. Under the 1936 pact we agreed to suspend the building of Bin gun cruisers until 1942. Since then Germany has laid down five of these ships, and if is practically certain that others are projected. On paper we have 13 similar units —including two Australian ships—but actually the German vessels are incomparably more powerful than ours.

The British Bin gun cruiser type, known generically as the County class, was derided in the Navy as a "tinclad type" owing to its scanty armour protection.. Although the British vessels are being taken in hand in rotatiou for modernisation, which includes strengthening of their armour protection, they cannot be given the same robust defence as is possessed by modern vessels. The German Bin cruisers are very heavily armoured vessels, with guns of a more modern and slightly heavier type than the British ships.

In these circumstances it has become essential that we should build ships of corresponding power, but this can be done only by scrapping, or- drastically modifying, the 1936 London Treaty.

According to my information, both the United States and France are agreeable to such action, since they are suffering under the same disabilities as ourselves.