Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-11

hoped, the protest Of these later in
the press and In private seem so to
have impressed Mr.. Hoover that sud-
denly, to the surprise of the British
We proposed to build a brand-new cap
ital ship as compensation for the Rod
ney and the Nelson.
At the same time we seem to have
explained privately to the British that
this was merely gesture to quiet our
big Navy people and that we do not
intend really to build it.
Last Wednesday Mr.. StimSon, finding
that a newspaper man had received a
feZ facts from friends in Washington,
abruptly decided to publish the Afneri-
can memorandum, which previously he
had apparently intended to keep secret
But before publishing it, as already has
been said, hi carefully deleted our new
capital ship building proposal, the ex-
istencs OF which was publicly admitted
only yesterday.
The British. by the way, will agree to
let us build this capital ship, saying that
1t does not interest them, though they
think the idea somewhat contrary to
the spirit of this conference.
Before our delegation left Washington
there was feeling that we might agree
to some such pact as the French pro-
posed, il thereby we could make the
conference success. But since arriving
here no two delegates seem to have the
same idea on this subject. Some say
yes, some no, and others perhaps. One
suggested that we could not agree Ito
confer" but might agree Ito discuss. "
The only thing all agree on is reluc-
lance to face this issue.
Whole Question Remains.
The American Government has re-
peatedly announced that we will cut our
Navy to the lowest figure consonant
with parity. The British proposed a
few days ago to cut their aircraft car
rier tonnage from $4,000 to 100000.
An American naval expert Immediately
issued a memorandum explaining how
this proposal injured the American
interest.
The whole question remains to be
threshed out.
Today, in the public session Of the
conference, we upheld the British thesis
for the abolition of submarines, to which
we committed ourselves at Washington.
The hope and belief Of our naval ad-
visers, who seem to favor the subma-
rine, Is that France and Japan by OPP
posing abolition will save the American
submarine fleet. These are some of the
more striking oddities Of the present
situation.
There is another, however. which is
even more secret" The United States
experts, after maintaining up and down
and forth and back for several years
that the only kind of cruiser we can
use is the 10,000-tonner with 8-inch
guns, seem now to be changing their
minds.
Our Navy, it appears has developed
a new 6-inch wonder gun" better
4. IL swa~k ~
Is what is asserted apparently on good
Plans for New-Type Cruiser.
Accordingly, we seem to have plans
fof a new-type 9,000-ton cruiser with
6-inch guns. Some of our experts seem
to think that we should build about a
dozen of these and not quite so many
big new 8-inch-gun cruisers. Others
hold the contrary opinion.
In order to satisfy both. Secretary
Stimson, therefore, has proposed, and
Great Britain seems to have agreed.
that we remain free to build only Is
big cruisers and use the extra tonnage
up to parity with the British in build
ing small cruisers. The British, how
ever, want to limit the size of small
cruisers to $500 tons, whereas we pre-
fer the 10,000-ton limit.
It is an interesting detail that al
most the same moment we we're pro-
posing to the British the transfer Of
tonnage between these two types of
cruisers our delegate in a committee
was urging that, in principle, there
should be no exchange Of tonnage from
the smaller to the larger cruisers.
In other respects the conference
seems to be going well. and it is gen.
orally believed that a five-power treaty
will finally be drafted.