Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-16
NECESSITY GUIDES BRITAIN
In u. S. NAVY PARITY ISSUE
Nation Seen Too Poor to Let Prestige
Lead Her Into Arms
Competition.

]
! let him forget the danger in the Pacific.
1 have been coming to England with
| great regularity for half a generation
which extends from the outbreak of
! the war to the opening of the London
! Conference, and l have never found the
British people in anything like as
friendly and unsuSpicious a state of
mind as to America. Even the matter
of debt, which bulked large in the
British mind some years ago. has lost
its edge.
If YOU look below the surface of con-
temporary British life you find the
whole people engaged in an all-abSorb-
ing and, in certain aspects, desperate
battle to restore the prosperity tempo
rarily compromised by war and post
war disturbances. You find the absorb
ing problem is how to bear the burden
of debt which is literally crushing in
dustry.
On all sides there is a common agree
ment that only if taxation is reduced
can the old conditions be restored.
Measure by Necessity.
Under these circumstances the idea
of any form of competition in naval
construction with the United States is
obviously absurd 1t might be that If
Britain was as rich and prosperous as
America the question of pride might
lead to an adventure in competition TO
preserve the old naval supremacy. But
Britain is in no such state, and the
British people. by an overwhelming ma
jority, have determined to measure their
naval establishment not by the yard
stick of prestige. but of necessity.
The notion that StimSon is engaged
in a losing battle with the clever, re-
sourceful agents of that admiralty who
supposedly exist Just as a background
for the Macdonald cabinet is, of course,
pure moonshine. There is an honest
difference of opinion as to what consti-
tlltes the irreducible minimum of Brit
ish naval necessity. The so ships that
Macdonald fixed upon for America are,
in my Judgment, this lowest point. II
he should now undertake to go below,
think he might fall, and am sure his
surrer1.er would be repudiated by the
Tories when they came to power If
they held on until 1885 when the next
conference must assemble.
But this state of mind has no Ameri-
can element. In my judgment, the
handful of Tories who were filled with
the admiralty spirit and dominated
their party by their ability and force,
were responsible for British intran-
sigence at Geneva They did oppose
parity and they were satisfied that if
they refused to grant it we would never
build to obtain it. But the last general
election marked their overwhelming de-
feat when the country voted for parity
and good American relations.
If the London Conference fails it will
not fail because there is any difference
between American and British opinion
on the right of the United States to
full parity. It will not fail because of
any deep laid British plot, scheme or
design. 1t will fail because the prob
lem of British security has become in
extricably entangled with the question
of parity by reason of naval programs
of France, Italy and Japan and their
relation to British circumstances.
British Most Practical.
The British cannot come out in the
open in an international conference
and say their fear of France or Japan
or of their Mediterranean communica-
tions dominated by French and italian
coasts automatically limit the reduction
they can make in their naval estab-
lishment. But that is the thought that
lies behind their policy.
The British still are the most practi-
cal people in the world. They have
recognized the fact that we mean to
have parity if we can attain it, that
such parity carries no such menace for
them as they saw in the much weaker
German naval establishment. Having
accepted this fact they have dismissed
it. And they are almost diSappoint-
ingly unconcerned. But with talk about
French submarines or airplanes or
Japanese cruisers their whole tone
changes.
To sum up, in my judgment, after
eight years of wrangling precipitated by
the unlucky Washington Conference,
Anglo-American naval disputes are over
The British have accepted our thesis,
have adjusted themselves to the new
fact and ask simply that we shape our
parity to avoid collision with their in
escapable necessities in the matter of
imperial and domestic security. And
even if the conference should fail in
its larger horizons, it would seem that
it should be within the limits of Anglo
American craftsmanship to profit by
the opportunity which contemporary
British opinion clearly discloses.
Copyright, 1902