Evening star., 1934-10-28
Issues of the Naval
Conference at London
BY A. G. GARDINER.

BY A. q. GAhDlNEh.
LONDON, October 27.-It would
need a more robust optimism than
I can claim to take q hopeful view
of the naval talks that are proceeding
in London.
The talks are of a bilateral char
acter. Admiral Yamamoto and his
Japanese colleagues discuss the prob
lens at issue with Norman Davis and
Admiral Standley Of the United States
and these two parties to the con-
versations independently negotiate
with the British representatives. This
Is the procedure that has been agreed
on, but I do not understand that
general discussion is entirely ruled
out. Whether it takes place depends,
imagine, on the extent to which
common ground is revealed in the
bilateral talks.
There is little evidence Of this COM
mon ground being reached. There is
not one major question on which all
the five powers involved-America,
Britain, Japan, France and Italy-see
eye to eye. and the disagreements
have one character in common. Each
is prepared TO sacrifice something,
but 1t is always something that the
sacrificing power Is Indifferent to, and
any concession made in this spirit
is balanced by demands for some
thing that power regards as vital to
its own interests.
Nothing is more remote from the
discussions than an abstract survey
of the ground on which the naval
requirements of the world can be
placed on an equitable peace footing
The approach to each question is
overshadowed by the requirements Of
a given country in the event of war.
This is natural, perhaps, but 1t does
not make for manimity.
y
Take the question of submarines.
How is agreement to be reached on
this crucial matter? II any two
powers might be expected to be of
one mind, joined together in COM
suspicious. they are France and Eng
land. But now. as at the Washington
conference, they are at the poles on
the subject of submarines. France,
with her food requirements supplied
almost entirely by the home pro-
ducer. has no need to keep the sea
routes open with big ships and has
economical in that direction. She
has been the more encouraged to do
so this century by her close associa-
ton with Britain, which, as an island
power dependent on overseas sup
plies for her daily bread, is COM
the safety of her food ships.
But the greatest menace to that
security is the submarine. How real
that menace is is fresh in the minds
of those Of us who recall the dark days
Of the Summer Of 1917, when the daily
toll of sinkings brought this country
face to face with the specter of famine.
Naturally, Britain wants the sub
marine abolished. But France, econo-
MIXING on big ships. has specialized on
the submarine and firmly declines to
surrender a weapon which her geo.
graphical position would make pri-
marily formidable against Britain in
the unhappy event of trouble.
The British case for the abolition of
the submarine is Endorsed by the
United States and by Italy, but Japan
has, it seems, taken her stand with
France on this issue, for reasons much
more intelligible than those of France.
and so far there is little prospect of
the outlawry of submarine warfare.
x* **
Britain and the United States are at
issue on the big ship question, Britain
favoring the reduction of size to u.s.
900 tons and the United States believ-
ing in the necessity for herself of the
larger type. Aircraft carriers find
Britain and Japan in opposite camps
and for obvious reasons. Japan favors
their reduction, even their abolition,
because, Of course, the aircraft carrier
reduces the security which Japan de-
rives from her isolation.
But the real crux of the talks that
are proceeding centers in the Japanese
desire for a new treaty, more favorable
to themselves, in substitution for the
Washington treaty, which fixes the
battleship ratio between America,
Britain and Japan at 5-5-3. Japan
wants parity between the three fleets
on the basis of total tonnage. This
is held here to be unreasonable in view
of the geographical isolation of Japan
and her consequent security from at
tack. If the Japanese claim is in
sisted on, there seems small prospect
OF an agreement, and I find little ex-
pectation in informed quarters that
the London talks will pave the way
to Q satisfactory issue Of the next
naval conference.
Copyright. 1934)