Parity by 1936

One evening last week a secretary at No. 10 Downing Street, dingy brick residence of Britain's Prime Minister, answered the telephone, started slightly, and later said that what he had heard was: "Hello? This is Charlie Dawes. Tell the Prime Minister I'm coming right over"--click! Within 15 minutes the Ambassador was at No. 10. Heartily greeted by Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald, he planked down on the long table in the Cabinet Room a new naval offer from President Herbert Hoover.

The new note represented strenuous efforts by the President and seven U. S. admirals to go rather more than half way to meet Mr. MacDonald's ideas of how the U. S. and Britain should achieve first naval parity and then mutual reduction of armaments. Pleased, but unwilling to make a snap decision without expert judgment, the Prime Minister personally rang up the Admiralty, asked First Lord Albert Victor Alexander to step over. When he came and approved the Hoover offer Scot MacDonald hesitated no longer. For more than a month he had been unable to say definitely whether or not he would visit President Hoover in Washington to cement the naval bond. Now correspondents were called in, were told that when the Berengaria noses out of Southampton on Sept. 28 she will carry apple-cheeked Miss Ishbel MacDonald and her potent sire.

Cruiser Stumbling Block. Though the text of the Hoover note was not disclosed it was known to keynote a proposal that Britain and the U. S. shall achieve parity in capital ships, cruisers, destroyers and. submarines by 1936. Present combatant tonnage strength of the two Great Powers in these categories are:

U.S. Britain

Capital Ships 525,850 556,350

Cruisers 255,000 420,140

Destroyers 310,429 241,330

Submarines 87,000 84,000

Thus there is to-day a relatively minor disparity in Capital Ships (covered by the Washington Conference Treaty of 1921 which will automatically bring Britain and the U. S. to Capital Ship parity within the next five years) and in submarines. Also the Hoover-Dawes-MacDonald naval parleys of the past few months have shown that both powers are quite willing to cut down their destroyer tonnages to parity at a figure around 125,000 or 150,000 tons each. The major stumbling block has been cruisers, and it was with cruisers that the Hoover note of last week was principally concerned.

Hoover Solution. In effect President Hoover was understood to have proposed that by 1936 the British cruiser fleet shall be reduced from 420,140 to 340,000 tons, while U. S. cruisers will expand from 255,000 to 305,000 tons. If the "combatant strength" of the two fleets were in direct ratio to their tonnages, this would leave the U. S. decidedly in the lurch-- at a disadvantage of 35,000 tons. But the outstanding feature of the present Anglo-U. S. negotiations has been application of the so-called "Hoover Naval Yardstick," a system of evaluating the combatant strengths of fleets in terms of gun power as well as tons.

Thus the Hoover proposal of last week envisions 23 of the largest 10,000-ton cruisers with 8-inch guns for the U. S., while Britain will have only 15. The British will have a larger proportion of small cruisers with 6-inch guns--38 as against 10 for the U, S. When the factor of gun power is introduced, the question of whether the two fleets will be on a basis of "combatant parity" obviously ceases to have any direct relation to "tonnage parity." All that U. S. citizens and Britons can do is to accept the word of their admirals, of President Hoover and of Prime Minister MacDonald that the arrangement proposed would leave the naval strengths of the two powers substantially equal. In the British Admiralty and the U. S. Navy there are plenty of experts who strongly mistrust the principles of the yardstick but last week they were held in rigid leash by Statesmen MacDonald and Hoover, both anxious to reach a common-sense compromise without stickling.

Vansittart Prepares. Though Britain appeared to accept the U. S. proposals broadly in principle last week, a few minor points were known to remain for negotiation--for example: it was understood in Downing Street that Mr. MacDonald will dicker for one or two more 8-inch gun cruisers, may yield three or four 6-inchers. A man who will advise the Prime Minister how to wangle such details is his principal Private Secretary, Sir Robert Vansittart, keen, suave, an engaging grinner and, when not occupied with affairs of state, a romantic poet. For the past three weeks Sir Robert has been in Washington, perfecting arrangements so that Mr. MacDonald could make a last-minute decision to visit the U. S. and yet find everything in readiness.

Last week Sir Robert sailed home on the Majestic to return with the Prime Minister on the Berengaria. Full as a meaty egg of Washington lore and the counsels of smart, popular British Ambassador Sir Esme Howard, sagacious Secretary Vansittart will play a leading inside role in making the Hoover-MacDonald contact fruitful.

Five Power Conference. Definitely announced by U. S. Secretary of State Stimson last week was the fact that the present tentative Anglo-U. S. agreement respecting cruisers and destroyers will not become binding before next December, when a Five Power Naval Conference will be called to give Japan, France and Italy a chance to participate. Recalling that the Washington Conference Treaty of 1922, fixing Capital Ship ratios, may be terminated at any time after 1936 upon demand of one of the signatories, Statesman Stimson further said that it would be expedient to call in that year a conference at which ships of all categories would be limited simultaneously.

Reactions to the Stimson announcement by the Japanese, Italian and French governments were all favorable to the idea of the December Conference last week, but there were signs that all these nations will press for a higher cruiser and destroyer ranking than the 5-5-3-1 3/4-1 3/4| ration to which the U. S., Britain, Japan, France and Italy bound themselves by the Washington Treaty with respect to Capital Ships.