AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 944, 10 April 1930, Page 11

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

EXPERTS SEEK LIMIT TO GUN CALIBRE PROGRESS OF NAVY TALKS British Official "Wireless Reed. 11.55 a.m. RUGBY, Wednesday. The special sub-committee appointed by the First Committee of the London Naval Conference to consider the question of aircraft carriers met today under the chairmanship of Mr. Alexander, First Lord of the Admiralty, and it was agreed: “That the generic term ‘aircraft carrier’ for the purposes of the present agreement should comprehend: ‘■'First, aircraft carriers of over 10,000 tons standard displacement, as defined in the treaty between the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan, limiting naval armament, and signed at Washington on February 6, 1922. that other surface vessels of war of a standard displacement not exceeding 10,000 tons designed for the specific and exclusive purposes of conveying aircraft, and so constructed that aircraft can be launched therefrom and landed thereon, such vessels shall not carry guns with a calibre in excess of 6in. J -’ These vessels will go into the aircraft carrier category, while all other vessels built to carry airplanes or seaplanes are to he charged against an appropriate combatant category according to size and armaments. SIGNOR G RAN DI ILL Today’s conversations between the naval delegates which were arranged in the hope that the chances of a fivePower agreement might be reviewed, were somewhat impeded by the illness of Signor Grandi. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, and the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Arthur Henderson, had a long meeting with the Italian Ambassador, Signor Bordonaro, and Signor Rossi. In the course of the day and this evening the French and United Kingdom delegations also met. After the latter meeting, which was held in the Prime Minister’s room at the House of Commons, a brief communique announced that the development of the conversations of the last 24 hours had been examined and that a further meeting would take place tomorrow. It is understood that this meeting dealt mainly with statistics as did also the conversation earlier in the day between Mr. A. V. Alexander and M. Dumensil, heads respectively of the British and French Admiralties. Meanwhile progress was being made with other spheres of the conference. The work of the British, American and Japanese experts who have been examining the reservations of the Japanese Government to the proposals sent to Tokyo as part of a potential five-Power pact, reached a general agreement on most of the points at a meeting today, and tomorrow they will deal with one or two matters still outstanding. It is officially explained that the true definition of the conversations between Britain and France of the past 10 days is a discussion on the drawing up of an agreed statement to define the sanction clause of the Covenant of the League of Nations. No actual formula has either been accepted or rejected by the French Government, but Britain and France have practically agreed in principle.