News of the Week
THE Cabinet's second thoughts about its attitude to the Hoover disarmament plan were a good deal better than either its first or its third. The original idea was to put forward alternative proposals ; then we were given to understand that there would be no question of a rival plan, but acceptance of the Hoover plan with reasonable reservations ; and now we have a rival plan after all. That is bad psychologically in its effects on American opinion, and bad on other grounds in that the claim that the British plan achieves as much disarma- ment as the American will not stand examination. The British Government rejects the proposal for the immediate reduction of capital ships by a third ; it rejects the aboli- tion of tanks ; it rejects the abolition of bombing aero- planes ; and in no case does it offer any alternative com- parable in disarmament value. The suggestion that the reduction in the size of capital ships, beginning five years hence (or eleven years hence if the life of these vessels is lengthened to twenty-six years, as is probable), achieves more reduction than the scrapping of five ships now, with the likelihood of more scrapping in the near future, is completely disingenuous. If we propose to build new capital-ships as soon as treaty restrictions permit, France and Italy, which are free to build them now, will un- doubtedly do so, and Germany, which is limited to 10,000 tons, will demand equality with the rest of the world. That is not disarmament. As to the proposal to reduce 10,000 ton cruisers to 7,000 tons, that would not take effect, as far as the British Navy is concerned, till 1947, for none of the existing 10,000 ton ships can be replaced till then.
