GERMAN SUBMARINES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1938, Page 5

GERMAN SUBMARINES

BIG INCREASE IN TONNAGE PROPOSED

Under Naval Agreement of 1935 .NOTIFICATION TO BRITISH GOVERNMENT ■ (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day 10.25 a.mJ RUGBY, December 30. The following communique has been issued by the Foreign Office: — The German Government recently notified his Majesty’s Government, in accordance with the procedure laid down in the AngloGerman Naval Agreement, of its intention to exercise certain rights conferred upon it by that agreement. Representatives of . the Admiralty left London for Berlin on Thursday to discuss with the German authorities concerned the question arising from the notification.

The agreement provides that Germany, while not exceeding thirty-five per cent of Britain’s total tonnage, shall have the right to possess a tonnage equal to the submarine tonnage possessed by the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

Germany undertook in 1935 that her submarines tonnage should not exceed forty-five per cent of the total submarine tonnage possessed by the British Commonwealth of Nations, but reserved the right, in the event of a situation arising which in her opinion made it necessary for Germany, to avail herself of the right to equality in submarine tonnage, to give notice to this effect to the British Government, (and agreed that the matter should be the subject of friendly discussion before the German Government exercised that right. The British Government recently notified the other naval powers with whom she has treaties of the German desire to exercise her rights under the Anglo-German Agreement. These are the United States, France and Italy (signatories of the London Naval Treaty), Russia, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.