The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1920-12-17

purify uSlSHolNC SldL dStSA anu ouSH
forces as are required for internal po-
lice purposes, both of the nation itself
and its colonies and manufactures.
What forces the various nations would
require, or would. believe they needed,
would have to befthe measure Of the
strength allowed each. Obyiously
agreement upon that among the ma
tons would be difficult, yet upon such
an agreement would hang the whole
matter. No nation would disarm it,
self so long as it believed the posi-
bility of successful attack by another
existed. In this connection Gen. Bliss
makes a distinction between armies
and navies. He says that no navy
can make successful war alone. 1t
can blockade coasts and capture ports,
he says, but it takes land forces to
invade country. The best answer to
this is that land forces are much
more quickly created OUT of nothing
but the raw material than is navy.
A nation possessing such a navy as
would enable it to take possession of
all the ports of another, destroy its
commerce and cut it off from the
world by sea, capturing or destroying
all merchant marine on the seas
which might be of aid to it, would
have plenty of time to create all the
army it might need for invasion if in
vasion were necessary. Any disarma-
ment which did not include a reduc-
ton of naval establishments to a pure
ly defense basis would never give the
world the sense of security which
must be at the very foundation of
abolition of war preparation.
In this connection we have but to
call attention to the statement of
Viscount Ishii, at Geneva, that Japan
cannot consider reducing it's arma-
ment so long as the United States
continues increasing them, referring
to our navy. That is exactly what we
are doing, at a rate unprecedented in
the history of the world, so far as ma
val construction is concerned. We are
building the most, the largest and the
most heavily armed capital ships of
all the nations and as many as all of
them combined. Not many years ago
it was the British policy to keep a
navy stronger than any other three
navies combined. Later that was re-
duced to the two-navy standard. Now
our building program will reduce
Great Britain below a single-nation
standard in three years unless it al
so begins extensive construction. Re-
Gently the London Times expressed
great alarm over this fact and de.
manded naval program. Failure
| to keep pace with us is not due to a
willingness to let US become the
worlds greatest naval power, nor to
an intontior n diso,ro prit;sh -,
val experts claim that the lesson Of
the Ioto war is +hot brro foht;na
sbips are obsolete and il is . we,+a ~
money to build them. They claim the
United States is spending hundreds of
millions of doIlors for tbo i,,nl. Ln,n
This oninion receives s,,,e s,nnnrt
from tbe rarao4 hotuo ,r,ctioo nf onr
Pacific feet sevcn hat+lnsbins With
dcstyovers tornodo hoats subnori,o,
etc ograred in battle lr,i,c which
every hqt.rpslin was tbcorctic,Il,
sunk six 4ir,a. !, acfrai b,ttIa o,,o
/ is oa5ueb for b,+fIpsbin IN ho .,nl
IN. +, nossiIle our brya and s,.olri,n
/ ngyz. NAV. met bacon, sp,h IN cps,..l.
( to disarmament as il now aDno,rs
But be that ms IF NAV tha obiaf oh
stacle is ,acl, cf arroor,ao+ ar,o,,,
the nations f,ita that arcb m ,o,,on.