Unlike Mr., CoOlidge, the Big NaVY party America does not
hesitate to say that the programme is the direct result. of the breakdown at Geneva. If our own Government had immediately produced an expansionist policy the result of-the ibreakddwii, we should haidly have been able to' find words strong enough to describe their recklessness. It is impossible, therefore, not to apply the infallible proverb that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and to say that if we were Americans we should have to use very strong words about the Big Navy school. If this programme should ever be fulfilled, America will have a fighting strength in modern cruisers not only superior to that of Britain, but probably superior to that of all the navies of the world combined. The increase of the fleet by seventy-one vessels in a five-year prograriame would cost £148,000,000. The addition of twenty-five 10,000-ton cruisers would give America altogether forty-three up-to-date cruisers.
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