Japan and Bigger Battleships The answer of Japan to the
request of Great Britain, the United States and France that she will tell them whether she is building, or intends to build, battleships exceeding the maximum limit of 35,cco tons laid down in the Washington and London naval treaties is, as was expected, that she will not tell them. That means that Britain and the United States at any rate will assume that she does propose to exceed the limit and will lay down larger ships themselves ; which means, in turn, that Japan will have to build larger ships in any case, whether she had in fact been seriously intending to or not. France and Italy may also feel impelled to join in the mad race. Japan, of course, is acting entirely within her rights. She is not bound by the two naval treaties and is entitled to build whatever ships she chooses. But her soberer statesmen are already beginning to realise that, for her, increased building-programmes are the road to ruin, while for the western nations they involve only unwelcome but not impracticable sacrifice. For that reason it may be that the last word has not been said. It is indeed hinted semi- officially in Tokyo that Japan never did mean to build larger ships, but she did not like the way the question was put to her, and in any case she has always stood for quantitative limita- tion (numbers) under a formula which would entitle her to equality:with Britain and America instead of the 5, 5, 3 propor- tion, and not qualitative (size). There is still, therefore, a half-chance of agreement if a way can be found to restart negotiations.
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