GENEVA FAILURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 122, 13 August 1927, Page 13

GENEVA FAILURE

BRITISH ANALYSIS CAUSE EXPLAINED AMERICA UNCOMPROMISING (British Official Wireless. Copyright) Reccf 11.35 a.m. RUGBY, Friday. Tlie Rt. lion. W. C. Bridgemau, First Lord oi: the Admiralty, speaking last night on the recent Geneva naval conference, said that although the delegates disagreed it had done a great deal of good by letting light and air into the whole subject. He expressed the opinion that a mistake was made by the Washington Conference when it agreed that the maximum for new battleships should be 10,000 tons, with eight-inch guns. Britain wished to reduce the size of ships and guns. An eightinch gun had immense superiority over a six-inch gun, and that was a direct incitement to all countries to go in for the maximum. The Americans proposed also that destroyers should bo allowed as much as 3,000 tons, which meant that destroyers would be nearly twice as large as they were now. The British proposals were by far the most effective as regards economy and were stated absolutely frankly. AMERICAN ATTITUDE “We asked each country to say what it wanted, and why it wanted it. AVe had the greatest difficulty, and we never did succeed in ascertaining why it was that America wanted such a number of those large cruisers and such a large number of cruisers even a little below 10,000 toils, but with eight-inch guns. It was on this that we were unable to come to terms. We said we wanted a number. They said they would not limit the size of the guns they wanted, and there we could not agree. BRITISH POSITION “The reason why,wc wanted number was simply that we live in an island and our food, and raw materials for our trade, come an immense distance. There are many thousand miles of trade routes to be protected. We have in this country few food supplies, and during the war we found out how quickly we could get near the starvation point. America, after all, is a huge country, self-contained, and it is inconceivable that she could be the subject of a strict blockade. We were not considering the possibility of war with America, and it was out of our minds altogether. “Our problem is one of defence against any accident that might happen. We want an assurance against any unforeseen danger that might come from anywhere.” Mr. Bridgemau added that one good aspect of the conference was that it demonstrated once more the union of the British Empire. —A. and N.Z.