Starting Gun?

Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Monsell of Evesham, rose casually one day last week in the House of Commons and fired what sounded like the starting gun of a gigantic world naval race. Ostensibly he was merely asking the Commons to vote an additional $51,500,000 for 1936 naval expenditures to supplement the $345,000,000 already provided in the Budget. Sobering naval news went with the request.

The Washington Naval Treaty expires at midnight Dec. 31, 1936. Until that time no signatory nation may lay a keel in violation of treaty limits. Viscount Monsell announced last week that between now and then the Admiralty will assemble machinery, gun mountings, hull materials for an extra-Treaty armada whose keels may thus be legitimately laid next New Year's day. Proposed new tonnage included:

P:Two 35,000-ton battleships, to match the pair simultaneously provided for in the U. S. House of Representatives last week (see p. 17).

P:Two 9,000-ton cruisers and three 5,000-ton cruisers.

P:Nine 1,850-ton destroyers.

P:One aircraft carrier.

P:One big mine-laying submarine, three small ones.

Earmarked for assembling materials for the two new battleships was more than $2,000,000. Of the additional $51,500,000 asked by the Admiralty last week, $36,500,000 will pay for "expenditures necessitated by the Italo-Ethiopian situation . . . important improvements in our stock of ammunition, fuel and many other essential stores and in the equipment of the Fleet."

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