Limitations Deadlock

INTERNATIONAL

Limitations Deadlock

The U. S.-British-Japanese Naval Limitations Parley at Geneva (TIME, June 27 et seq.) continued static and unfruitful last week despite the holding of a public session at which the position of each of the three delegations was restated unchanged but with polemic fervor. Reduced to elementals, the deadlock could be stated in two stages:

I. The U. S. delegation was able to accept naval limitation at either the relatively high total tonnage level demanded by Great Britain or the relatively low level insisted upon by Japan; but since the British and Japanese were so far apart the U. S. delegation's ability to agree with either was of small consequence.

To newsgatherers the U. S. Chief Delegate, Hugh S. Gibson, exclaimed: "We could be happy with either [Britain or Japan] were t'other dear charmer away."

II. Although the British and U. S. delegations were able to agree on the figure of 450,000 cruiser tons as a basis of limitation, last week, they could not agree on the proportions in which to build ships of various sizes with-in this limit of total tonnage.

A vivid though extraneous feature of the public session was a description by Admiral Earl Jellicoe of the War-time exploits of the German raider Berlin-exploits which correspondents often described, during the War, only to have their despatches "killed" by Allied censors. Lord Jellicoe admitted, last week, that the Berlin once ducked unperceived through eight battle squadrons of the British Grand fleet and proceeded to lay mines which later sank the potent British battle cruiser Audacious.