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Show NOT A CONFIDENCE GAME. Majority sentiment in the United States approved the London Naval Treaty, not because the American people did not believe in adequate national defense and the equality of our fleet with any other, but because they did believe that the London treaty paved the way for such naval construction as would repair the loss of parity- which has occurred under the operations of the Washington agreement. Following the Washington Washing-ton conference, in which parity in I battleships was agreed on, necessitat-! necessitat-! ing the sinking of a half billion dol-! dol-! lars worth of American warships in process of construction, both Japan and Great Britain, taking what many people believe to be an unfair advantage, ad-vantage, engaged in rapid construction construc-tion of cruisers. The United States meanwhile stood still. Under the terms of the London treaty the other nations are restricted in further cruiser crui-ser building, and the United States is given opportunity to build up to the agreed ratio of strength. To do this will require American naval con-, con-, struction costing about a billion dollars dol-lars in the next few years. The pacifist organizations of the country, with seemingly unlimited financial resources, are now preparing prepar-ing to oppose this construction, claiming claim-ing that the parity agreed on at London Lon-don was only permissive rather than obligatory. The American people have assumed that the agreement implied an intention on the part of the Am-ercan Am-ercan government to achieve the naval equality provided in the treaty. They take no stock in the claim that there is any secret agreement not to go ahead with the naval construction by which the treaty was justified in American Am-erican public opinion: otherwise the whole proceeding would be rendered render-ed farcical. All those who have, recommended the London naval treaty to the American Am-erican people are in honor bound to execute the program which justified that treaty with, the people. What the pacifists' propose is a deceptive and dishonorable governmental policy a betrayal of national interest under cover of protecting that interest. Congress Con-gress is chiefly to blame for the inaction in-action which encouraged foreign naval na-val powers to build beyond us. Not one of our internationalists was heard to protest against the action of the British and Japanese governments in so far outbuilding the United States after entering into an agreement agree-ment the American people believed meant naval disarmament, not a thimble-rigging game to bring about' American naval inferiority, as it was tevidently assumed to be by other pow-ers and by our own pacifists. Undoubtedly Un-doubtedly those who have had to do with framing and ratifying the London Lon-don treaty will be active in balking the plan of the pacifists to put them in the light of promoting a confidence game on the American people. |