THE NEW NAVAL AGREEMENTS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your belief, as expressed in the last issue of The Spectator, that " the naval agreements between Great Britain and Germany and Great Britain and the Soviet Union signed in London last Saturday are welcome," will assuredly receive general acceptance.
It is, however, to be hoped that, before these agreements are ratified, the mistake committed in drawing the Washington Treaty will not be repeated. In that Treaty the necessary space for the accommodation of coal fuel was inexplicably sacrificed in order to conform with the reduction in the size of warships which was agreed upon. In the opinion of many naval men, this slip on our part provided an infinitely greater inducement for its acceptance by countries with virgin oil ready to their hand than the main purpose this country had in mind for suggesting it. Care should, therefore, be taken to make certain that we are not again tricked out of the ability of being able to revert to our unsurpassed coal in event of oil being withheld from us.
As the size of, say, a io,000 ton cruiser (standard displace- ment) would only have to be increased by about 600 tons to admit of her being equipped with sufficient dual-fired boilers to develop ro,000 h.p. on coal, thereby providing a substantial cruising speed, it would represent a godsend, and that without sacrificing any of her characteristics as an exclusively oil-fired ship.
It cannot possibly be held that the small increase of 600 tons in standard displacement would nullify the laudable purpose aimed at.
Were our fleet to be driven back on its colonial or home bases, and equipped to burn coal, our resisting power should not be seriously affected, but without the ability to burn coal our condition might very easily be hopeless.—I am, Sir, your
Previous page
