The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1922-02-06
A GREAT VICTORY.
The Conference Has Chespened War
and Eliminated Chief Causes for War.

The way to measure the Importance
OF the naval treaty is to remember
what would have happened had there
been no agitation for disarmament, no
Washington conference, no Hughes pro-
posals and no agreement.
We should have gone ahead with a
program for the greatest navy in the
world Japan would have gone ahead
with her program to prevent us from
building too far ahead of her. Great
Britain would have had to Increase
her naval program to prevent Japan
and America from outdistancing her.
Then about 1924 or so we should have
had to make new program TO keep
Japan from catching up to us. And
they would have had to have more pro-
grams in order to catch up with us.
To keep the American Congress and
the British Parliament and the Japa-
nese Diet screwed up to the point OF
spending hundreds and hundreds OF
millions of dollars Il would have been
necessary to run an amending series OF
scares. In order to make people pay
the taxes, people in each country
would have had to be kept in state
OF palpitating excitement about the
sinister plots, the hidden spies and the
tremendous ambitions of the other two
nations Every time the three powers
disagreed about anything they would
have had TO wonder whether the great
~. "a ErarU
they met in any international gather
ing they would have had to spend, as
did the European powers before IDA,
most of their time iockeying for po-
sition, logsrolling for allies and polish
ing their weapons. The end Of all
that distrust and all that taxution
would have been war and bankruptcy
and unspeakable devastation.
The naval treaty adopted yesterday
in Washington strikes at the root not
Of ornaments but OF competition in
ornaments. The most important thing
about ii il not how many ships are
strapped and how many are retained.
The most important thing il that ra !
tic Il fixed which abolishes naval com
petition by the FIVE naval powers. 1t
il the ratio that matters. For since
all fleets are built to fight other fleets
the essential thing is relative strength,
1t is of no Importance to our safet
how many battleships we own or hoy
large thew are. All that counts is OIL
strength in relation to the strength OF
other nations.
Before the agreement was made
each nation was the sole Judge Of wha
ii needed for defense. The only linsis
to ornaments was the point wher'
hatred Of taxation was stronger than
the fear of other nations. That II
changed Each nation now knows ea-
actly how strong it is entitled to he in
proportion to the others. For Great
Britain. America and Japan it is as
five is to five is to three. For the pres
ent the conference translates this ratio
roughly into $4,000 tons for Grea
Britain, $4,000 tons for America, Sl5,
600 for Japan. That is because the con-
ference could not disturb peoples hab-
its too much But it is perfectly cha
that ii America and Japan are bntl
safe with $4,000 against $4,000 the
would be just as safe If each had only
half as many tons.
In other words, the fixing Of 4 RI
Ito cuts to the root of naval srma
ments. Without ratio the limit Of
ornaments is the sky; with a ratio
the limit is practically complete dis
armament. Yesterday at Washington
the naval powers stood at cross
road One path led to more arma-
ment the logger they followed it. The