Cruiser Crux

The Naval Limitations Parley at Geneva (TIME, June 27 et seq.) took on last week the character of a hot and personal duel over a blunt question: "Shall the present voluntary inferiority of the U. S. Navy to the British Navy be perpetuated by a binding treaty?" This question was haggled over in terms of cruisers, last week, because the cruiser is the strongest naval arm which the Parley was called to consider. Because negotiations proceeded wholly in private, last week, it was necessary to piece together from unofficial sources the guiding concepts which each delegation was striving to round out into achievements.

British Delegation's Concepts. 1) Britain to retain actual naval supremacy, while seeming to grant the U. S. equality with herself in a shrewdly-worded treaty; 2) The Coolidge Administration expected by the British to accept this treaty, so drawn as to make good political capital in the U. S. by giving the impression that a Coolidge victory had been won at Geneva; 3) The essence of this subterfuge to be twofold: a) That the U. S. and Britain should each be allowed to build 600,000 tons of cruisers (that is to say, a great many more than a pacific, pinch-penny U. S. Congress would ever authorize); and b) That all cruisers should be of 7,500 tons (which would suffice Great Britain, because she has naval bases for these small boats throughout the world, while the U. S. has not); 4) The justification of such a treaty to be that Britain has far-flung interests and trade routes requiring defense, whereas the U. S. is selfsupporting.

U. S. Delegation's Concepts: 1) That the U. S. would accept nothing less than parity, at not more than 400,000 cruiser tons (200,000 less than the British asked) ; 2) That the British proposal to limit cruisers to 7,500 tons could not be tolerated, chiefly because it would make more than 40 fast British steamers potential cruisers, and also because of U. S. lack of naval bases; 3) That the British had stated their position in such bald terms that the Coolidge Administration would not find such a treaty as the British proposed valuable political capital, but rather the reverse.

Keynoters. Within the broad concepts just sketched, outstanding U. S. and British delegates struck last week increasingly pungent keynotes:

Hugh Simpson Gibson, Chief U. S. Delegate, U. S. Ambassador to Belgium:

"The American delegation came . . . ready to negotiate and modify our plan within reason, but it is better to abandon the attempt to limit armaments rather than try to put over a camouflage scheme which means either immense additional construction or relegation [of the U. S. Navy] to second place."

Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, Secondary British Delegate, 1924 recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Peace Award, tireless champion of the League of Nations:

". . . America does not fear us; America knows there is no possibility of war with Great Britain--then why does Washington insist on limiting our navy below the strength the Admiralty states we require? . . . [Referring to a point in the U. S. proposal, and banging his fist on the table] This is perfect nonsense!" Immediately Mr. Gibson demanded a retraction which Viscount Cecil made.

Divertissement. To test the repeated British statement that the Admiralty's demands were "absolute"--that is to say not "relative" to U. S. naval strength--Mr. Gibson suddenly proposed last week an arrangement under which the British demands for 7,500-ton cruisers would be largely met, but the U. S. would have a slight supremacy in 10,000-ton cruisers.

Immediately Chief British Delegate William Clive Bridgeman rapped: "Of course we would build up to your 10,000 tonners, ship for ship."

Commented Mr. Gibson, to newsgatherers :

"While we are asked to trust Great Britain's purity of intention whatever her demands, it does not seem to work the same way when we make a few ourselves.

"There is no such thing as absolute needs. If needs were absolute then there would have been no need for a conference. Each nation would merely have stated its own needs and let it go at that.

"We maintain that naval needs are relative. So far in this conference, aside from what we consider minor details, Great Britain has not offered to give up one single thing.

"The 7,500-ton cruisers we are asked to take would give us a woolly-lamb fleet, a kitten fleet."

Because Hugh Gibson is a dapperly-dressed, middling-sized man of only 43, and thus "the youngest U. S. Ambassador," his appearance at Geneva as U. S. Chief Delegate was at first regarded in Europe as one of U. S. President Coolidge's solemn little pleasantries.

Hugh Gibson was known as a routine "career man," 19 years in the State Department's service, member of at least half a dozen smart clubs in various European capitals, and generally the sort of man who works hard around an embassy, golfs and dines, sees his tailor often--and is forgotten when a "Big Man" must be found to go out and negotiate for his country.

To do Mr. Gibson justice, some remembered that he has been a wholly satisfactory U. S. Minister to Switzerland (1924-27), often appearing with dignity as U. S. observer of League of Nations doings. But what were the high points of his "career"?

Perhaps it has not been forgotten that in 1912 Secretary Hugh Gibson of the U. S. Legation at Havana, Cuba, successfully collected, after arduous negotiation $557,000 cash, owed to a U. S. concern for constructing waterworks. Having performed this service, Mr. Gibson was attacked as an "extorter" by a Cuban editor called Massa who knocked him unconscious with a pair of brass knuckles. President Taft compelled the imprisonment of Massa; but U. S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan later got the impetuous editor released before he had served his term. Only long-memoried statesmen like U. S. President Coolidge store away the essential fact: Mr. Gibson had collected.

What else has he done? To Mr. Gibson's credit it will always be memorable that, as Secretary to the U. S. Legation in Belgium during the War, he made every effort to save the life of Miss Edith CavelL* All this however, did not seem very promising, when the Chief U. S. Delegate arrived at Geneva and repeatedly answered queries by newsgatherers about the conference by saying: "I am an incorrigible optimist."

Then, gradually, as the Parley got under way, the metal of Hugh Gibson began to be manifest. His instructions were to accept nothing but extension of the 5-5-3 Washington Conference capital ship ratio to smaller types of ships. The British, on the other hand, wanted to re-open the whole ratio question, modify the Washington Treaty, and stop its extension. No "young" diplomat ever faced more formidable opponents, among them Lord Cecil who is accounted one of the very ablest and most persuasive negotiators in Europe.

Chief Delegate Gibson's problem has been, and was last week, how to display firmness without obstinacy, win sympathy without losing respect, and keep the issues clear against shrewd efforts to distort them in the press. There were at Geneva, last week, few competent observers who did not express the conviction that, whatever the fate of the Parley, Mr. Gibson had won spurs as a first rank international negotiator.

*Miss Cavell freely confessed that she had aided British soldiers to escape from Belgium, proudly showing letters which proved that they had reached England. She was then sentenced by the German court to death "for conducting soldiers to the enemy." Anglo-Saxons have generally contended that she did not actually commit this crime, because she only aided the soldiers to escape into the Netherlands (a neutral not an enemy country), and had then no control over their later movements.

Mr. Gibson went with the Spanish Minister to Baron von der Lancken, and asked mercy for Miss Cavell.

"We all pointed out to Lancken the horror of shooting a woman, no matter what her offense," writes Mr. Gibson in his A Journal From Our Legation In Belgium Doubleday, Page, 1917). He continues: "We endeavored to impress upon him [Lancken] the frightful effect that such an execution would have throughout the civilized world. With an ill-concealed sneer he replied that on the contrary he was confident that the effect would be excellent. . . ."

"When it was only too clear that there was no hope ... it was bitter business ... to go back to the Legation to the little group of Englishwomen who were waiting. . . . All we could do was to give them each a stiff drink of sherry and send them home . . . I had a splitting headache. . . ."