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Show A WISE DECISION. No matter how great or little is the final success of the administration of President Roosevelt, and the public approval thereof, when the four years arc finally weighed in the balance, it can be said now that no decision arrived ar-rived at during the administration will meet with more general approval than the one recently announced to the effect that the Unit-d States wi"l not change its naval program, as had boon requested by the British government. gov-ernment. Great Britain, it will be remembered remember-ed by those who have followed the developments of naval diplomacy during dur-ing the past few years, has tried from the very start of negotiations to limit the United States to small ships of a comparatively short cruising radius. The reason for this is obvious. Gnat Britain has naval bases scattered all over the face of the globe, stations where her warships can go in for repairs, re-pairs, for refueling and for other supplies., For this reason lighter cruisers cruis-ers with a comparatively small cruising cruis-ing radius suit her quit" well. On the other hand, the United States possesses few naval bases and for that reason needs larger cruisers which are able to remain out at sea for a long time without coming home for supplies. Small cruisers would be practically useless to us. Great Britain, of course, bases her request for smaller cruisers on the argument ar-gument for "economy" and "arms reduction." re-duction." Her real reason is, of course, quite different. The British naval experts ex-perts know that if they can get the United States to agree to a number of small cruisers, equal to the number num-ber to be built by Great Britain, John Bull will have Uncle Sam at a great disadvantage because he will have a cruiser fleet which can travel all over the field while ours will have to remain close to the "home plate." At the last naval conference desperate desper-ate efforts were made hy the British naval poker players to get . us to agree to a building program of small cruisers, and a virtuous parade of economy and disarmament sentiment was put on for the benefit of the world. But the American delegates were not entirely fooled, and insisted on a building program which would give us soma of the kind of cruisers we need. Unfortunately, however, our building build-ing program has not proceeded as fast as it should with the result that, we are way behind Great Britain and Japan Ja-pan in building our fleet up to agreed strength. With an eye to the next arms conference, when she hopes to be able to put over the small cruiser idea on us, Great' Britain recently made a plea to the American government govern-ment to desist in its cruiser building program until after the next conference. confer-ence. We were told that our continuing continu-ing to build the ships we have a right to build would have a "bad effect" on sentiment, and cripple the next conference. con-ference. Latest dispatches from Washington indicate that the administration has failed to fall for this brand of British "hooey" and that His Majesty's gov-, eminent has been informed that the : United States cannot see its way clear' to alter in any respect the present' ?23S,000,000 ship building program. I News dispatches from abroad say that this is a "blow to British hopes" and this can not be doubted as it will mean that new plans will have to be made by John Bull to keep Uncle Sam's navy in an inferior position' while pretending to agree to "parity." , From the American standpoint, however, the decision of the administration adminis-tration is both sane and patriotic. To agree to the crafty British campaign for smaller capital ships and cruisers would mean the placing of our naval inferiority to Great Britain on a per-1 manent basis. With small ships we could never have parity because of Great Britain's superiority in the matter mat-ter of naval bases. The American peo- 1 pie are awake to the value of our navy from the standpoint of national ! defense and no decision the present administration can make will be more popular than the one to go ahead ; building the cruisers we need so badly, j |