13 AUGUST 1927, Page 1

It was on Thursday, August 4th, that the Naval Limitation

Conference at Geneva declared its inability to reach an agreement. The negotiations were then " adjourned "—a word carefully chosen—with a recom- mendation that the Conference for the revision of the Washington Treaties which is due to be held in 1931 should be convened at an earlier date. We have discussed the whole subject in a leading article, but we may say briefly here that the Conference failed mainly because the American Delegation felt unable to move one inch from the formula of total tonnage which it presented to the Conference in the first instance and which took no account of the peculiar need of the British Empire for a large number of comparatively small patrolling cruisers— vessels which from the point of view of war on a grand scale may be described as non-aggressive ships.