JAPAN BUILDING A NEW FLEET

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 76, 22 December 1937, Page 5

JAPAN BUILDING A NEW FLEET

— Presa Asbu.-

Impenetrable Secrecy Over Plans A "REPLY T0 SINGAPORE"

(By Telegrapb

-Copyriebt.)

(Eeceived 22, 8.45 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 21. During the past year Japan has maintained complete secrecy regarding her naval armament preparations. The First Lord of the Admiralty stated in Parliament last May that as the Washington and London Treaties lapsed at the end of 1936, (no exchange of information now takes place between Japan and this country." It has now been disclosed at Washington that the American Naval Intelligence Bureau has had no information as to Japanese warship construction since the end o£ 1936. Officials consider that the British and French authorities are equally in the dark, but that in view of the recently-form-ed "triangle" Japan may be taking Germany and Italy into her confidence. What is definitely xnown is that Japan is spending £55,000,000 .on new warships and equipment, over and above the normal provisions of the naval budget, a further £5,000,000 on naval bases and fortification, and £4,250,000 on the naval air force. A new fleet is thus being built under the cloak of secrecy. There is nothing to show that Japan's new ships will be restricted to the tonnage and gun calibre fixed by the existing treaty, to which all the other Ieading naval Pawers exeept Italy are signatories. The Tokio Admiralty refuses to divulge whether it is building battleships above the 35,000-ton liinit or any ' 'A' ' class cruisers — mountihg 8in. guns — which the Treaty Powers have agreed to forego for a period of six years. Should it be discovered that vessels of these types are aetually under construction in Japan, the 1936 London Treaty would probably be denounced under one of the . "escape" clauses, on the grounds that adherence to the limits would result in the production of ships inferior in fighting power to the new Japanese types. This step is, however, more likely to be taken by the United States than Brita;u, which is reluctant to raise the present standards of warship tonnage ex'cpt as a last resort. Naval and defence works on a large scale are proceeding in the island of Formosa. The new base here is described in some Japanese papers as "a reply to Singapore," from which it is less than 2000 miles distant.