“RIGHT TO BIG NAVY”

Evening Star, Issue 19796, 21 February 1928, Page 5

“RIGHT TO BIG NAVY”

DANGERS OF LIBERTY OF ACTION

We in this country would bo unwise to imagine that our naval strength should be kept on a parity with that of America. Wo should let America go her own way in warship building, in tho full assurance that hostilities between her and ns are simply inconceivable.—Liverpool ‘ Post.’

There arc sonic people, says ‘Public Opinion,’ who are .alarmed at tho increase in the American navy, foreshadowed by Air Coolidgc’s speech, coming as it does after the British announcement of a. reduction in the proposed new cruisers. There is a determination, however, ou the whole to fight any attempt at naval rivalry, but that there is an uneasiness lost the situation may drift out of hand cannot be gainsaid. The news as wc go to press that the President is ’considering a programme for the next five years, which calls for twenty-six 10,000-ton cruisers, throe aeroplane carriers, five submarines, and eighteen destroyer loaders, shows that America is both prepared to build and to pay.

“There is no need for excitement on this side of the Atlantic over President Coolidge’s announcement of the growth of American naval estimates and the construction of more cruisers,’’ says the ‘Daily Express.” “There is no need even for criticism, and as for the propaganda which Air Coolidgo warns tho world ‘will not cause us to change our course,’ it would, if it came from this country, be out of place and even offensive.

“AVhon Germany was building up a great fleet she was doing it for one special purpose, and that purpose was to threaten and to smash the security of the British Empire. The naval situation as far as it affects and is affected by the United States is wholly different.

“ Anj r - idea that Great Britain’s interests would suffer through a greater American navy is so ludicrous that it hardly calls lor denial. America has the right to look after her own business and to have a big navy if sho cares to pay for it.” “With a population of 42,000,000 England has twice the debt of the United States.” points out the ‘Evening Standard,* “and is paying not far short of three times the interest on debt—to be precise, £358,000,000 against £134,000,000. In five years the annual saving in America on interest alone has been £42,000,000.

“The circumstances of the two countries are in many ways not comparable, and the United States National Debt, which, of course, is the debt of a Federation, and not of a unified State, is not quite the same thing as our own. But nil this does not affect the main fact that therea has been ‘ constructive economy ’ on a very large scale, with the highly desirable result that the rate of interest has- fallen, and the State is able, when opportunities of redemption come, to reborrow on progressively advantageous terms.

“ A great, even a very great navy is a bagatelle to the American people. A navy barely sufficient for our needs is a severe buitfen on ut, sum! must be increasingly npptcssivf unless and until ‘ stern seli-dems! in public expenditure,’ with Its favorable effects on trade, improves our financial position.”

“The British Navy has its own responsibilities overseas,” comment*) ‘The Times.’ “It has to defend, for instance, India, Canada, Australia, and South Africa, not to speak of a number of other territories. We are, moreover, an island and not a continental Power, so that our very existence’ is dependent on the adequate protection of our trade routes. “Essentially our naval policy is determined by the vital necessities of our national defence, which do not conflict with those of the United States but are altogether different in range and character. It is tor the Government and people of the United States to estimate their maritime requirements. Wo can only consider our own. What has always been made perfectly clear is that we sha!l_ not dream of building in competition with the United States. ■ Our needs cannot be determined bv theirs.”

“Will the spirit in which the whole armaments policy of the United Slates is conducted under the new regime of freedom and independence be of a kind to help on tho cause of international peace?”, asks the ‘ Glasgow Herald.’

“We find it difficult not to seo in the attitude which America has adopted all through this year on the naval question a relicx of the abounding prosperity to which the President’s message' bore such eloquent tribute.' The Government and the people of tho United States are almost painfully conscious of their wealth, their enterprise, their national vigor, and the superiority of their standards over those of the Old World. “ In their outlook there is in consequence more than a touch of arrogance. They find it surprising and distasteful that any State should even appear to dispute their claims in such a matter as naval armaments; and the danger is that in their resentment they should be tempted to abuse their position and to take a course of action which will appear to less fortunate nations to be dictatorial. Such may well be the outcome of the naval policy which Air Coolidge announced.

“There may be no conscious commencement of competitive building, but the desire to display America’s material power and assert her liberty of action may have much the same result as if an armaments'race had been deliberately begun. The next two or three years will be more definitely a testing time for American character than the President’s complacent platitudes ever suggest.” “ Whether parity should consist of rough equality of strength or of exact equality in every class of ship is by comparison a small matter,” is an issue raised by the ‘Manchester Guardian/ “ though the latter conception, which is the American, will clearly make competition the more acute. But neither conception is compatible with the assertion, • repeated with equal solemnity on both sides of the Atlantic, that we are not building against each other. That assertion will only be true on the lips of the Government which is bold enough to say that its building programme will be entirely unaffected however many ships are built by the other. That is the assurance for which we wait in vain.”