Evening star., 1931-12-08

behalf of the Council on Foreign Re-
lations, Of which latter the Hon. Elihu
Root is honorary president and the
Hon. John w. Davis is president, said
the first Of this month that such
scheme would be opposed by the strong
est powers in Europe because II would
destroy the offensive value OF sea
power at the root"
Mr.. Gardiner continues: "The Navy
League takes this occasion to express
throughout our country its great graft
tude for this wholly unexpected critj-
cism Of MIR. Hoover's proposal and coll
lateral support OF our point OF view, in
this particular respect, by these very
distinguished gentlemen"
Hits Presidents Inquiry.
President Hoover's Committee Of In
Quiry into Mr.. GARDENERS prior state
ment, todays letter said, In its entire
report, failed Ito prove that any ton
mage figure we have given or ratio
figure we have deduced therefrom is
not correct" The letter takes the
Hoover Committee to task for finding
itself "in the unfortunate position of
having signed a report it alleges that
the United States has under construc-
ton at the present time a larger total
tonnage than any other power (95,10
tonS) whereas, in its same report, 1t
says that France is building at the
present time 1877 ,424 tons; and of hav-
ing signed a report wherein it alleges
we had said that the actual auxiliary
ship ratio of Japan is 1c.l' to that of
100 for the United States, whereas we
had said no such thing. but, on the
contrary, had said that the American
japanese ratio in this respect was 100
10.0-a misquotation in the report that
Mr.. Hoover's Committee signed upon
which glaring inaccurary on its own
part it repeatedly relies to attack the
accuracy of the assertions we made al
though, in its entire report, 1t failed to
prove that any tonnage figure we have
given or ratio figure we have deduced
therefron is not correct.
THE first specific allegation in the
letter wherewith Mr.. Hoover's Com
mittee transmits to him the report it
signed is that we said that the Wash
ington Naval Treaty established a
ratio of 1916 as between the American
and Japanese fleets as a whole says
todays letter.
Denies Making Statement.
I'VE did not say that. The fact that
the Washington Naval Treaty limited
the aggregate tonnages of only the
capital ship and aircraft carrier cate
gories is so well known as not to call
for specific reiterstion. Indeed, its
limitation of the capital ship category
saved other powers the expense of at
tempting to build up relatively to the
capital ships we then had approaching
completion and which we scrapped
And having been saved such expense
they we're in all the better position to
avail themselves of the opportunity left
open by the Washington Treaty to
build unlimited aggregate tonnages of
all categorieS other than capital ships
and aircraft carriers. Thus under the
provisions of the Washington Naval
Treaty and outside of its limitations,
between its date of signature in 1922
and the opening of the London Naval
Conference of 1880, the British Empire
laid down nearly 270,000 tons of sea-
going combatant naval vessels, the
Japanese Empire about 5000 tons,
France nearly 100000 tons and Italy
over 10000 tons, while the United
States had laid down merely about
10000 tons of such vessels. In short
even Italy laid down more new sea-
going naval tonnage than the United
States, while the other three treaty
powers averaged among them each to
build about three times as much new
tonnage as we did"
Quoting the Republican party plat
form of 1928, the letter of Mr. Gardiner
says: I'VE pledge ourselves to round
out and maintain the Navy in all types
of combatant ships to the full ratio
provided for the United States by the
Washington Treaty for the Limitation OF
Naval Armaments and any amendment
thereto" and adds "a pledge that Mr.
moment to carry out since he has beer
in Office"
The letter continues: THE second