19 OCTOBER 1929, Page 1

A Naval Misapprehension Last week Mr. Stimson, the American Secretary

of State, thought it necessary to contradict one remarkable misapprehension about the Anglo-American agreement. Some newspaper—American ?—in commenting on the agreement said that " Great Britain and the United States have in effect agreed to pool their Navies to main- tain peace." Mr. Stimson pointed out that throughout the Naval conversations there had not been one syllable which would justify such a conclusion. " The tenor of our conversations was exactly the reverse." He then went on to explain that the whole object of the Anglo- American accord- was to exert a moral influence, not a military one, in order to keep the peace. The repudiation is timely because it is precisely such misunderstandings as this which give Europe a pretext for fancying that Great Britain and America have in view a joint naval hegemony.

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