FLEET PROBLEMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 940, 5 April 1930, Page 9

FLEET PROBLEMS

NAVY HEADS STRUGGLE FOR FORMULA GENEVA PARLEY MOOTED Bi'itish Official T VireJess Kecd. 11.20 a.m. RUGBY, Today. The British and French delegates to the Naval Conference and their expert advisers again spent several hours today in the search for a formula setting out an agreed interpretation of certain articles of the League Covenant. Although their efforts have not yet been successful, the task has not been abandoned, and hopes are still entertained that a formula may be found which will so increase France's sense of security as to enable her to make an appreciable reduction in her naval tonnage requirements without explicitly or implicitly extending the obligations to which Britain is committed under the League Covenant and the Locarno Treaty. The submarine experts met this afternoon on the subject of proposals ! for humanising submarine warfare and limiting the size of the submarine. It is expected that the report ot these experts will be forthcoming in the course of the next few days. A Press Association message says the political aspects of the Naval Disarmament Conference will be further discussed at a luncheon by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Arthur Henderson and M. Briand. The American, British and Japanese naval advisers continue consideration of the latest communication from Tokyo. A new difficulty in the search for a formula is contained in Signor Grandi’s intimation to Mr. MacDonald that his interpretation of the Covenant of the League and the Locarno Treaty was that they concerned other Powers besides France, and the best place to discuss them was Geneva. In any case, the problem remained. Even if France reduced her figures, she still denied Italy parity.