The Naval ,Conference
'The Five-Power: Naval Conference opens in London on Monday. On its prospects no high hopes are set anywhere. Yet its failure may have the gravest consc-. quences, both financial and political. The conference is, of course, strictly technical. Its concern is with ratios and tonnages and gun-calibres. Its basis is the Washington Treaty of 1922 and the supplementary agreements reached at London in 1930. The whole intention and purpose of the conference to be called on the eve of the expiry of the Washington agreements was to effect a further diminution of tonnages and probably the total abolition of the capital ship. as then understood. That prospect today seems lamentably remote ; actual increases in .the size of capital ships arc being seriously discussed. , But technical as the conference. is it cannot pursue its course regardless of the political factors involved. Italy is a member of the conference. So is Japan. The disarmament achieved at Washington in 1922 was part of a larger agreement. embracing a consultative pact for the Pacific, the non-fortification of the Pacific islands and pledges of non-intervention .
in China. Where are those pledges now And what is to be said of the situation created by their violation ? Armaments depend on policy.
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