NAVAL REDUCTION PLAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 662, 14 May 1929, Page 9

NAVAL REDUCTION PLAN

CORRESPONDENT DISCERNS DIFFICULTIES BRITAIN EXAMINES SCHEME (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) LONDON, Monday. The naval correspondent <j£ the “Daily Telegraph” refers to the scheme of the United States for reducing the fighting fleets. He says the formula is being closely scrutinised by British experts, because actual reduction, as distinct from limitation, is now proposed. The United States is no longer willing to concede the maximum of 400,000 tons for cruisers offered at Geneva in 1927. No figure above 250,000 tons is now conceded. Therefore, acceptance of the plan will involve a heavy reduction in the current American programme and the wholesale scrapping of British vessels. British naval opinion regards 250.000 tons as utterly insufficient. That quota would allow 25 10,000-ton cruisers of the County class or 30 8,400toji vessels of the York class. As half of these would be absorbed in the Battle Fleet barely a dozen cruisers would be left for the defence of the trade routes. It is inconceivable that the Admiralty would agree to a reduction which would leave British floating trade defenceless in time of war, says the correspondent. America seems still determined to build only 10,000-ton cruisers, against which small cruisers would be valueless. If the United States would agree to discard 10,000-ton vessels it would be easy to effect a substantial reduction in strength. Britain is likely to raise the matter of the protecting of her oil supplies, which ipust be transported thousands of miles by sea. It can be stated authoritatively, says the writer, that the British proposals to be submitted at the next conference will offer a practicable method of reducing the size of aggressive power and the cost of the world’s fighting fleets."