Naval Conference Salvage The Naval Conference is in.process of being
wound up, and the prospect is .that such agreements as are worth signing will be signed in the first instance by Great Britain, the United States and France, with the prospect that Germany and Russia will accede later by means of Anglo-German and Anglo-Russian treaties. As to the content of the main treaty the size of capital ships is likely to be limited to the present figure, 35,000 tons, and guns to 14 inches, these figures to be reviewed in 1940. Cruisers may -be limited to 8,000 tons. There is not much there to inspire satisfaction, and the failure to get the tonnage of the: battleship below 35,000 tons is particularly disappointing. It is the United States which insists on that figure, but Admiral Sir. Barry Domvile, in a letter in Saturday's Times, asks plainly why-we should not act on the assumption that we shall never be at war with America and settle down cheerfully to building smaller capital ships than her's. The- answer to that sensible suggestion (as Sir Barry realised) is that American decisions affect us through Japan. The Japanese insist on having ships as large as the United States, and we, as long as we have interests at Hong Kong and Shanghai to defend, are not likely _to allow Japan to outbuild us. That raises large strategic questions. '
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