JAPAN’S NAVAL VIEW

Hokitika Guardian, 19 December 1929, Page 8

JAPAN’S NAVAL VIEW

WANTS FULL RATIO. ALSO ABOLITION OF CAPITAL SHIPS. L United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.] WASHINGTON, December 16. The leading Japanese delegate lor the London Naval Conference, M. Wakatsuki, to-night, in answer to queries at the Japanese' Embassy from press reporters, replied in a manner indicating that the Japanese Government will contend for a modified form ol global warship tonnage, which would insure for its navy seventy per cent, of the highest number of ten thousand ton cruisers allocated to the nation given the greatest tonnage in ships of that class, and also a higher tonnage percentage of submarines than it was supposed that Japan would request; but without contending for the right to build submarines of less than six hundred tons without any limit as to their number.

There was also the expression of a hope that battleships would ultimately be abolished as naval weapons. Although Mr Wakatsuki made it elefir that the time for the abolition of capital ships had arrived, he also, gave an assurance that his delegation would enter the London Conference “with an open mind,” and a. willingness to declare Japan’s further adherence to the Kellogg Pact. Mr Wakatsuki was unable to state whether such a declaration would be incorporated with any treaty that might be concluded at London, but his expression thereupon fits in in an important way with the desire of Britain and of the United States to make the Kellogg Pact the Cornerstone of a naval disarmament agreement. Mr Wakatsuki said that there was no idea, at present, of Japan raising the question of Britain’s base at Singapore, and that Japan had not been informed whether Britain was likely to abandon her Singapore project. He added, s/milrngly : “Of course, it would be welcome!” Mr Nington Wakatsuki further indicated that the Japanese delegation desired to follow out the following programme: —Firstly, having the naval conference fix the total tonnage for auxiliary ships lor each nation, but with the modification that the number of tons of a ship of the cruiser, destroyer, and submarine class be fixed; secondly, that if the United States were to be allotted twenty-one, or eighteen, then thousand ton cruisers to fifteen from Britain, Japan will wish for seventy per cent., of the highest number of such ships; thirdly that the Japanese problem, being wholly defensive, and contending that submarines, as well as cruisers, are necessary for her defence, Japan wishes the Conference to determine some limitation ol the whole tonnage allotted to each nation. leaving to each nation the determination of the tonnage of the submarines to be built within the total allotted tonnage; fourthly, that Japan is willing to take less than a seventy per cent, allotment of one or another class of auxiliary ship if the deducted tonnage, as from destroyers, could be added to her ships of another type such as submarine or cruisers.