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Show Predict Failure of pTTl Naval Conference CT J Experts Say Japan's Demands p . . for Naval Equality Make fv N , National Agreement I ; Impocsible. $ " lx 7 7 f . s l ' , v . N " i f ' ! J . - . , i -I ! . ' j. ' ,-" : -si-. tit.s . ., I . V." .J, ' ': ' "n 7.- v sX A - ssi- v . (t.., ' f-ff'v" -V vored moi,ltor ot the scr I S-V ZStZt F1! the submarine. I , ' X- v ' 1 The preliminary confcre'' ; - '.'fW ;vs1 lma Produced nothlnB lue bY $; s s-"1 , :r-1' "' lock- Itear Adn,lral is"-M x.. .'). J.,....xw,.ivj,'KfA.w.i..-.ot-.,.Ji MaiJ iioto, head of the Jnpnr r Upper Left: British Cruiser Norfolk. Right: Secretary of the Navy Swanson. Below: U. S. Airplane Carrier. Inset: Japan's Latest Warship. all ln favor of Japan, ; vored monitor of the sof'r' the submarine. ;ie The preliminary confere has produced nothing hu8 lock. Rear Admiral Isorr moto, head of the Jnpnr'ir; nir corps and a delegate f !e ference, says that Japan : ly ask cuts In armamoi'' ping battleships and alirj" riers as offensive weapon'"? course, the Japanese sera 11 1 on a much smaller scnla'' 11 to the charge recently fir3' 1 fiery American Brig. Gerrc D. Mitchell that our innilu ous enemy Is Jnpan and States air force must b. ties with that in view, Amban'ac mamoto said that the n'ir of Japan have never limit possibility of a war with :ilj, States. ."We have never ng the United States a por," emy," he insisted. in Anglo-American deles ten lain in waiting for .Tapai i forth some compromise Irk of ity plan, but little has hw. coming. en't Japan Fears Airpl'- I Japan more than anj fot dreads the airplane ea1 10 knows full well the dis1 which her Island empln' seriously crippled, If not Jtl by enemy planes with base In her home waters. ar( by those well Informer' might even accept furti her submarine craft in e? restrictions In airplane J? the other powers. Great Britain favors l;;so reduction of all sorts -'i craft, but will undoiiht'1' that all these restriction3? applicable to France. ItaP't many as well. These tin? H while figuring little in ltl inary conferences, have tered Into what appear' m building race all their many, who made the U-b:,rE in past conflicts, is prepA gin construction of suliniiot a large scale at almost: thi France, In rebuttal to thlr.'ie has already laid down 'ie e ton battleships at a cost: the 000 each. Because of th! :!le, also ordered two battle ;i of 35.000 tons. :!0ol Students of internatin Mq In consideration of these ... predict that no agreem fc reached In 1935 and th.j a great building rare Whether such a prospect ' Japan to modify its "'l , b( posal Is a matter of trai ( least she cannot afford t(..1Jt a spirited race against tf est and best equipped ... the world. Herr Vinson's Building Pi The most recent buildl ' that has been suggested iobi eminent Is that of OJ-chairman OJ-chairman of the naval ! I mittee. whose proposals Jon Include, among other Hec new airships, one to H Akron and one to replu g Angeles; a new 15.000-1 did carrier to replace the L to, construction of a crnlMjh deck for airplanes to lar, off to determine whether type of craft Is practicality pansion of all naval shoMl the relegation to the n., complete responsibility !lto sea defense of const hm' ization and expansion ot,,, training centers at Pen! and an Increase in the fl: United States naval ai;er polnteos. ''itf :itt By WILLIAM C. UTLEY JAPAN, speaking through Its ambassador am-bassador to the United States, Mr. Hirosi Saito, on November 23, announced formally that it intended in-tended 'o ask abrogation of the Washington naval armaments treaty of 1922, denouncing it as inadequate inade-quate to present-day needs. The move, while not unexpected In circles cir-cles of state, emphasized more clearly than ever the problems of the naval armaments conference to be conducted in Iondon next spring. The Washington treaty was made under vastly different conditions from those which face the parley of 1935. Nations, tired of war and economically pressed by the enormous enor-mous expenditures and subsequent back-breaking burdens of taxation, were in more of a mood to have things done with, and that In a hurry. Now they seem to have switched to the opinion that national na-tional defense at any cost takes precedence over economy. Japan, she claims today, submitted submit-ted to a limitation of armaments which are now, as she says they probably were then, Inadequate and humiliating. Later, in the London treaty of 1930, Great Britain claims to have been the "patsy," although admitting it was her own fault, a Socialist party then in power making mak-ing reckless and over-generous concessions con-cessions in an attempt to gain notoriety no-toriety and popularity through what it hoped would appear as a powerful pow-erful stroke of state. Under present conditions, Japan is the hold-out of the three great naval powers of the world. The three are now met ln a preliminary prelim-inary conference necessary to iron out the details of the presentations of the nations to the naval conference confer-ence itself later. It was the Washington treaty which was the author of the existing ex-isting 5-5-3 ratio of naval armaments. arma-ments. This permits the United States and Great Britain, the two most powerful navies, equality in strength, with Japan's navy 00 per cent equal to either. This is the principle Japan denounces as unfair un-fair and unsafe to its national defense de-fense and, secondarily, to the protection pro-tection of the Far East and the maintenance of the "open door" policy pol-icy in Asia. Now Japan insists on "equality In principle" In all naval armaments. Ton for ton, she wants her navy to he on a par with the other two powers. Her proposals at the London Lon-don preliminary conference describe de-scribe no categories for vessels (other than classifying them as either "offensive" or "defensive") ; they merely limit the total tonnage of the entire fleets. Through dozens of wearying discussions, the United States and Great Britain have turned Japan down flatly on the proposition, and have waited for the Japanese amhassador to Great Britain, Mr. Tsuneo Matsudalra. to return with a compromising plan. Chief spokesman of the United States is Norman II. Davis, nmbas-sador-at-large in London, and prin-I prin-I cipnl representative for the British Brit-ish Is Sir John Simon. Britisii for-I for-I eign secretary. All through the preliminary conference they have seemed to sit back and wait for Japan to make the moves; she has only returned to each new meeting with strengthened demands for equality. Japan Demands Equality. Backed by a tremendous flame of public opinion at home, which has been kindled for a decade or more with intense propaganda, the Japanese Japa-nese embassy makes It plain that the Land of the Rising Sun no longer long-er considers it safe merely to improve im-prove international relations simply sim-ply by entering Into a disarmament pact. Setting herself up as the great protector of the Orient, she insists that everything depends upon the acquisition of the right to build ship for ship with her rivals or scrap ship for ship. For the equality that Japan wants need not necessarily be secured through building, Tokyo has made It plain. She is willing to scrap ship for ship provided that the other powers will start first, bringing bring-ing themselves down to her level of equipment. Nippon, whose chief objection Is the 5-5-3 ratio, insists that the very word "ratio" be left out of all future fu-ture treaties, and will not subscribe sub-scribe to one that contains the word. This condition Is considered absolutely impossible by the other powers. Great Britain, with a vast colonial colo-nial empire that depends entirely upon sea power for the protection of its very structure, contends that so-called "equality" means actually a vast superiority for Japan in the Pacific, since there Is hardly an imaginable im-aginable circumstance In which It would be possible for Britain to concentrate con-centrate her entire navy in one area for battle purposes. The area Japan Ja-pan must protect Is comparatively small. In a war with Japan, Great Britain would have to conduct a naval campaign 10,000 miles from her home bases. Why a large navy Is necessary for the well-being of the British empire em-pire has been explained by the first lord of the admiralty recently; "Every day 110.000 tons of merchandise merchan-dise and 50,000 tons of food reach the shores of Great Britain from overseas. They come over 80,000 miles of sea routes, and unless we secure their safe arrival we starve. The protection of our sea routes, for the safe arrival of our merchandise, merchan-dise, and food, Is the business of the navy." Britain occupies a position po-sition unique among nations In that respect. A powerful navy or even a smaller navy more capable of quick concentration could cut off her food supply In almost no time. During the war, when the German submarine campaign threatened most, the entire nation was left with only six weeks' supply of food. Impossible, Says U. S. To the United States the Japanese Japa-nese proposal of equality Is equally Impossible. Japan, like Britain, with many island possessions, depends de-pends upon small, swift ships for defense. America must have large drendnnughts for the defense of her long coast lines, drendnnughts whose Individual tonnage must be much greater than that of the Japanese ships. Obviously a treaty, which limits shipbuilding to equality of tonnage alone, without naming any categories for the ships, must be |