Milford chronicle., 1929-09-13

be arranged that will have much
greater chances for success than
the ill-fated meeting at Geneva two
years ago.
1t will not do to say, however, that
| the conference at Geneva was entire
! ly a failure. True it is, that it did
not do anything toward reducing the
number of ships in the two larger
navies, but it did accomplish one
thing-it opened the eyes of the Am
erican people to the real difficulties
of naval limitation and convinced
them that it would be the height of
folly to take anything except a safe
and fair agreement that would give
us ample protection for our foreign
trade and our merchant marine IN
case of another European war. The
conference at Geneva was one in
which sentiment was not permitted
to overshadow sound diplomatic
sense, from an American standpoint,
and as a result we are now in better
position to get real naval parity than
we have ever been, by negotiation at
least.
It is of course realized that abso-
lutte parity in number of ships and
size of ships in each class is almost
impossible. 1t will be necessary for
the United States to give in some in
stances and to take in others. But If
the final figures reach real parity be-
tween the navies of the two coun-
tries, and if the United States has
enough of the kind of ships neces-
sary to maintain our position as a
naval power second to none, then it
can fairly be said that real equality
has been reached. What the Ameri-
can people expect Is not an absolute
matching of ships ton for ton, but
an agreement in which Uncle Sam
will not be asked to do all the sac
rifcing, but will be given the best of
it as often as he is compelled to take
the worst of it. This was not the
case in the Geneva conference where
the British diplomats expected us to
sacrifice the kind of cruisers we
needed and build the kind that were
especially suited to the British navy
but of small value to us. AS the Chi
cago Tribune recently well put in, in
commenting on the Geneva meeting:
&HA
"Our difference with the represen-
tatives of the government of which
Mr.. Churchill was very important
member arose from its proposal that
there should be a rigid limitation
upon the type of cruiser needed by
us as a parity with Great Britain,
and a pleasant elasticity--in fact, no
limitation at all-upon the types of
little value to us and of great value
to the British empire. The effort Of
the Conservative government to in
duce our representatives at the Ge-
neva conference of 1927 to accept a
plan on the formula of heads we
win, tails you lose was plausible
enough in view of the ineficiency of
our diplomacy in recent years, but it
brought about sharp and whole
some change in this country except,
of course, among the apologetic Am
and we are confident our
present representatives are as little
likely to sacrifice away American in
terests as our able representatives of
1927"
Here was the real value of the
failing Geneva conference. It crystal
lized public sentiment at home on
the naval question and brought us to
a realization of what we really need
in the way of navy. The rights of
the United States are not going to
be bartered away by sentiment this
year nor the next We will go as far
as any other nation but no farther.