Evening star., 1928-12-09
BY FRANK H. SIMONDS.

Lord Lee of Fareham and Rep
reSentative Britten of Illinois for
new conferences to settle the
Anglo American naval dispute
have at least served to indicate once
more how confused and confusing the
whole issue has become. Neither Lord
Lee nor Mr.. Britten has proposed that
there should be an Anglo American con-
ference to settle the real issue at stake,
namely, the question of policy. Both
have simply asked for a talk to bring
about an adjustment of the means by
which two national policies are to be
carried out.
What is at stake between the United
States and Great Britain is not the size
of their respective fleets. The real
question is whether the United States
is prepared to accept a British regula-
tion of the commerce of the world
whenever Great Britain happens to be
at war with a third nation. If we are
willing to agree to the traditional Brit
ish policy in this respect, we do not
need an equal fleet; all we need is a
fleet adequate to hold our coasts against
invasion, and that, in size and charac-
ter, is something far different from
parity.
Dragged in Two Wars.
For several centuries the British, pos
sessing supremacy on the sea, have as
serted the right to deal with neutral
commerce in accordance with British
interests in case of war. They did 1t
in the Napoleonic time and they did 1t
in the opening phase of the World War.
The result in both cases was to drag
us into a European conflict. In 1872
we fought Britain, in 1917 we fought
Germany. But in both cases, had we
possessed fleet equal to that of the
British, Britain would not have had
! the power to interfere with our COM
merce, because that would have in
volved the risk of having to face Ameri-
can in addition to German or French
naval strength.
There has never been any funda-
mental difference between British naval
policy and German military policy as it
| was expressed in the invasion OF Bel
gium. The Germans explained their
invasion of Belgium as the consequence
of their state of necessity. The British,
| in precisely the same fashion. have
maintained that their needs In war
| overbear all neutral rights on the sea.
Insofar as the construction of the new
American fleet to parity is not mere
empty and futile performance, it ex-
presses the settled purpose of the United
States to protect its own commerce
against any illegal or eXtra-legal inter-
ference in case of war in which the
United States is not involved. 1t is
based not merely upon abstract right
but also upon the far more concrete
| circumstance of national interest.
The Transformation of the United
States since the war into great credi-
fOY r1oti0n ond tho nataYt nV0IiltiOf1 nj
! the country into one of the greatest
| of all exporting nations have combined
| to make our foreign commerce and ouI
foreign interests intellectually more i'm
| portant for the Nation than they were
| before 1914 Interference like that OF
| 1914 and 1915 by British sea power with
our commerce today would involve far
greater domestic catastrophe than then.
If Great Britain, in company with
all the other great sea powers, would
Join us in a final and unequivocal
recognition of the freedom of the seas,
in the proclamation of the inviolability
of neutral commerce during war, and
If such freedom could be established in
international law in such shape as to
insure that it would not be violated in
case of war, there would be no reason
on earth for trying to match American
tonnage against British.
But, by contrast, as long as the Brit
iSh decline to recognize the principle
of freedom of the seas and possess a
naval strength sufficient to abolish such
freedom the moment Britain goes to
war, all conference is not only foolish
but for us dangerous. 1t is foolish be-
cause we have nothing to gain in the
conference: it is dangerous because We
may be brought to concede things which
vic tr
Pacifism is Apparent.
Since Mr.. Coolidge made his Armi-
stice day speech we have had a fairly
general explosion of pacifiSm in this
country But this pacifistic explosion
arises largely from the conception that
the purpose of our fleet is to fight the
British. This is not the case, of
course. If the British had the smallest
intention of resisting our naval de-
velopment by force they certainly would
not wait until we had built to parity to
fight us.
The British situation is simple. They
have sincerely and definitely excluded
war from their calculations where We
are concerned. But they have not
abandoned their policy of regulating
sea traffic in case of war. 1t is the
greatest single detail alike in British
power and in British prestige in the
world. And they are not going to
resign 1t until they perceive that the
American fleet has reached a point
where their power no longer exists.
Hitherto. in all British history, Eng
land has fought rather than to permit
any nation to possess strength which
would challenge British control of the
sea. But while England has now def
n1tely renounced war as a means of
preventing the United States from at
tanning the position France sought and
missed at Trafalgar and Germany at
Jutland, they have not renounced the
diplomatic weapon. Just as long as
there is the smallest human possibility
OF preventing American parity by. ne
gotiation or conference, they are going
to try to do it.
In reality the Washington confer
ence and the Coolidge conference were
1ndiStinguiShable from the conflicts at
Trafalgar and Jutland, save that the
weapons employed were diplomatic and
not naval. And in both cases British
diplomacy proved as successful under
Balfour and Cecil as British fleets had
been under Nelson and Jellicoe. In
both struggles our effort was to assert
our right to possess naval strength
which would automatically abolish
British sea supremacy. which would
insure the freedom of the seas so far
as our own commerce was concerned
when We were neutral and Britain a
belligerent.
AnglOphile Elements.
If the pacifist and Anglophile ele-
ments in the United States are able to-
day to prevent the construction of the
American Navy to parity, the immedi-