Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-05
The Five-Power Disagreement.

The five-power jig at London seems
at last definitely to be up. The Amer
iran delegation has booked q home
bt and passage on the Leviathan for
April %. A couple of weeks more of
formalities, and then a grand project,
promise and hope. will take its place
in history alongside other unrealized
international schemes for the better
ment of an unregenerate world. The
Naval Conference of 1880, before it ad-
journs sine die, will plant a signpost
embla2oned with the legend that the
millennium is farther on.
It is the impossibility of France to
obtain security guarantees" from the
other naval powers which blocks the
way to a quintuple limitation treaty.
Secondarily, though. in fact, indissolu-
bly, linked with that primary cause, 1t
is the inability of France and Italy to
reconcile their parity" views that has
sent the conference to the rocks as far
as any five-sided pact is concerned.
But out of the wreckage of its major
aspirations the conference has salvaged
three-power treaty including Great
Britain, the United States and Japan.
Thus London cannot be put down as q
total failure. 1t is merely an incom-
plete success.
AS matter of fact, such an outcome,
though it falls short of the original
goal, is an achievement of the first
magnitude. It means that the three
foremost sea powers, representing in the
aggregate sixty per cent of the worlds
naval strength, have agreed among
themselves to arrest costly and provoca-
tive competition in shipbuilding. It means
that the British American and Japanese
peoples are determined to tread the
path, laborious and long though it be-
that leads toward peace and away from
war. It means that for the next five
years at least the premier fleets Of the
world will be stabilized on known anc
commonly accepted conditions, each Of
them secure in the conviction that the
requirements of national defensive, from
their respective standpoints, have beer
carefully safeguarded.
The people of the United States mus
be prepared to discover that we
alone, practically, will be the only one
of the tripartite treaty powers who will
have to build extensively under it, while
the others stand relatively still. Thu
reason for that is clear. 1t is due
to the fact that America has not ex.
pandcd its feet, especially in respect
of modern cruisers, to any appreciate
extent since the Washington confer.
ence of 1922. In that same interval
exercise of their full rights, have gone
ahead in the construction of vessels
left unlimited at Washington. Uncle
Sam, having determined upon parity
with Britain and a corresponding su-
periority over Japan in auxiliary craft
must now spend money to catch ur
with the lead which our eight years OF
naval self-denial gave to the British
and Japanese fleets.
Substantial expenditure will be re-
quired to accomplish this. But thu
horsepower treaty will contain, as ont
of it's outstanding features, a provision
for postponement of battleship replace
ment between now and 1886. That ar
rangement will take from the backs o.
British, American and Japanese tax.
payers the burdens of many hundreds o.
millions of dollars of otherwise ines
capable expenditure. In our own case
the resultant saving will go far towarc
balancing the inevitable cost of leveline
up with our treaty associates in classe!
Of ships in which they now seriousl!
outnumber us.