The most important part of the agreement between Great Britain,
the United States and Japan is the under- taking not to replace obsolete capital ships and to reduce the number of effective capital ships. Great Britain and the United States will have fifteen capital ships each and japan nine. Thus, Great Britain will scrap five capital ships, the United States four and Japan one. This is an immense improvement upon the Washington Treaty. None of the ships which the Powers were authorized to build by that Treaty will be built. Great Britain and the United States could have built ten capital ships each. According to the recent White Paper the British' taxpayer between now and the end of 1986 will be saved £67,000,000. As regards cruisers, the parity between Great Britain and the United States is, from a fighting point of view, something of an arithmetical trick, as it could not avoid being. * * * *
