GERMAN NAVY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 February 1939, Page 5

GERMAN NAVY

EXPANSION PROPOSALS EXERCISE OF FULL RIGHTS UNDER TREATY. NO RECOGNITION OF .THREAT BRITAIN. (British Official Wireless.' RUGBY, February 8. The German decisions to mount eight-inch guns on the new 10,000-ton cruiser Seydlitz and to resume her freedom to construct submarine tonnage up to the British total was the subject of seven questions on the House of Commons’ order paper today.

They were answered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, Mr Shakespeare, who made it clear that the German decisions were in accordance with the rights conferred upon her in the Anglo-American naval agreements of 1935 and 1937. The German Government’s standpoint in reaching these decisions, Mr Shakespeare said, had been stated to be that, in the present condition of international affairs, Germany was no longer prepared to refrain from developing her naval forces to the full extent permitted by the Anglo-German treaty. He mentioned that the increase in German tohnage did not affect the overriding condition in the treaty that the total German tonnage should exceed 35 per cent of the aggregate of the British Commonwealth. The Minister added that the Board of Admiralty could not agree that the exercise by any power of the right conferred upon it by a treaty could be regarded as constituting a threat to Britain, or any other power.

He remarked, however, that, in drawing up the 1939 programme of new naval construction, Britain had given full weight to all factors in naval developments in all parts of the world, and he invited the House to await the Navy Estimates to see what that programme would contain.

“SIGH OF RELIEF”

LORD LONDONDERRY’S VIEW

OF GERMANY.

NO CAUSE FOR ANXIETY. (Independent Cable Service.) RUGBY, February 8. Lord Londonderry, former Air Minister, said in a speech today that Germany’s progress toward strength had provoked a difficulty, but he did not say that with any note of pessimism or in any spirit of alarm. With the great material assets of the British Empire and the great democracies of the United States of America and France, allied in thought with this country, there was no force in the world which need give them cause for anxiety. The times in which they lived, however, were so ’ strange that, because there was nothing of a startling chaiacter in Herr Hitler’s recent speech, everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Herr Hitler had told the world that, unless Germany could export, she must die. But every country was in the same position, and there must be some method by which trade -throughout the world could be stimulated when there were such vast undeveloped treasures.