' This doctrine, so far from putting the British delegates
at Geneva a little more in the wrong, puts them a little more in the right, for it cannot Possibly be denied that the immense and intricate geographical construction of the Empire requires a VerY large niunber of small cruisers for patrol. Mr. Coolidge vigorously follows the line, which was 'taken by the American representatives at Geneva, that the peculiarity of British needs is a fact to which no special consideration can be given. We are bound to say, feeling as keenly as we do about the misfortune of the failure at GeneVa, that if we were Americans, intent upon gradually disarMing the wild, vs.'e should be deeply disappointed by Mr. Coolidge's Message. Although he says that his country has renounced the policy of competi- tive armaments, his argument amounts to a plea for matching any particular class of British ships with an American class of equal strength. Within the limits of mathematical parity this is competition. It is a forcing -of construction, not a reduction of it.
-
